Good Christian Bigots

Some of the nicest, most decent, generous people I have met over the years were people of faith. And so were some of the most hateful, bigoted ignorant bastards.

I thought of this after I was deluged with the most depressing emails I have received in a very long time, the reaction to my appearance on The O’Reilly Factor when I said there is a strain of anti-gay bigotry running through conservative America that I find deeply troubling.

What got me going was news that the conservative organization One Million Moms issued an ultimatum to JC Penney: either fire your news spokeswoman, Ellen DeGeneres, or we will stop shopping in your stores.

What exactly is Ellen’s sin? What has she ever done to any of those million moms? No matter how you cut it, it comes down to this: She’s gay.

One Million Moms issued a statement saying: “Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families. More sales will be lost than gained unless they replace their spokesperson quickly. Unless JC Penney decides to be neutral in the culture war then their brand transformation will be unsuccessful.”

I told Bill that while reasonable people may disagree on a controversial issue like gay marriage, this conservative strain of bigotry that demands the dismissal of someone simply because she’s openly gay, had to stop. It is gays now that they can’t stomach, I said, but back in the 1950s and 60s it was blacks. I’m not talking about all conservatives, I said, or even most. But there undeniably is a strain of bigotry in the conservative movement. And a lot of it comes from people who call themselves Christians.

I got a truckload of mail about what I said, some of it thanking me. Some came from conservatives, some from libertarians, and some from gay people of no particular political leaning who simply were grateful that someone stood up for them – on national television no less. But the vast majority of my mail came from the other direction.

Larry, who obviously thinks being gay is no different than being a dangerous criminal wrote: “Stealing, raping, murdering, reveling, gambling, drinking, drugging, fornicating, child molesting, and perverting is all sinful behavior and it is never OK when it is flaunted in the faces of our children. There is always a price to be paid for sin and the price is death. God is not mocked.”

Ken picked up where Larry left off. “What if J.C. Penney hired, as their spokesperson, an admitted pedophile. Would you still be so open-minded? I think not. It is no difference with us regarding gays.”

Kimberly, another God-fearing Christian, noted that I said I used to be a liberal before liberals got crazy and I became a conservative – which prompted this: “You know what, go back to the liberals, I respect nothing nor will i listen to anything you have to say from this night on. It is not bigotry, it is called Christian values, and even a jew should know the bible and understand the word of God. Take your ignorance back to the side you belong on, we don’t want you. Your [sic] a liberal to the core. I repeat Christian values.”

Ron chimed in with this: “It appears Bernard is part and parcel of the Leftist move to legitimize sexual perverts.”

Michael and Patricia were looking out for me, not just in the short run but in the long run, too. They said, “Wake up Bernie, or you will begin to lose many viewers as well as your soul.”

Virtually all the people who wrote to me expressing anti-gay views said they got their marching orders from God. They are against people like Ellen, they said, not because they’re bigots, but because they’re Christians. The Bible says homosexuality is wrong, they told me. So how can they be guilty of bigotry when all they’re doing is obediently following the word of the Bible?

Many people are inspired to do good things after they read the Bible. They feed the poor, they work in hospitals, they fight disease in far off countries. Not these yahoos. Their Christianity is dark and un-enlightened.

Some of the people who wrote to me, like Gene, insisting that they’re not bigots, called her Ellen Degenerate. But why is she a degenerate? Has she had sex with another woman on the corner of Sunset and Vine in Los Angeles? In Times Square? I’m pretty sure she hasn’t. What Ellen has done to offend these good Christians is a) she was born gay, and b) she reached a point in her life where she refused to hide it any longer.

Heterosexuals can walk down the street, a guy and his girlfriend or his wife, holding hands. They can sneak a kiss in public. Not gays. They’re “flaunting” their sexuality if they show affection in public. Straight men and women can have (make believe) sex on TV sitcoms. But when Ellen’s character came out as gay on her old TV show this somehow “is pushing the lesbian agenda” as someone I know said.

Others who wrote to me said gays made a choice to be gay. According to this “thinking,” they apparently woke up one day, got out of bed, brushed their teeth, and said, “You know what? I think I’ll be gay from now on.” Anyone this stupid should not be allowed to vote, drive a car, or use sharp objects.

Most Christians, of course, are not as disturbing as these people. Most, I suspect, say, “Ellen has done nothing to hurt me, or my family, or Western Civilization for that matter. And she seems like a real nice person.” Not the One Million Moms or their million God-fearing supporters. They want JC Penny to dump Ellen. Immediately. JC Penny has responded: No way, the company said. We’re keeping Ellen.

Thank God for that.

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Many mistakes many have made on all sides. If you are really interested in the”Bible” you should quote the truth of the issue. It’s not if I like or dislike the folks who have “chosen”or “born” to be gay. The Bible is very plain as it states the concerns about what the rules are regarding “gays” . As a christian it also provides me the direction to travel and that is to pray and tell the truth to those who are willing to listen regarding this matter. It is real plain and difinitive in the scriptures, as is divorce and other matters regarding sin itself, you do not need a any human document or study to provide the intent.

You can cut it anyway you want, you can be educated or simply minded, you can have a PhD in psychology or other human sciences, however, the fact remains it is accurately defined, laid out and there are no other answers and that is the real issue for most folks, christian or non-christian.

The real problem is not if I am a bigot, Gods children is Gods children and his rules and his commands or his rules and commands and no one, I say again no one is going to change them and that is what so many folks on both sides are really troubled about.

Bermie and Bill you say you are about the truth, well you have missed it before and you are missing it agian. Your credit much like CNN is going to the highest bidder and creating news fastly becoming your virture.

Warnerdennis

What if one day one of the daughter’s of one or many of the daughter of the million mom’s had a talk with “mom” and said they were gay would this change the views of the million mom’s ??? HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORAY FOR J.C.P.!!!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000783774756 Sharon Ort

great article Bernie….. I am a republican but i too, admit that i notice that strain of bigotry in the republican party. I really enjoyed the article and especially agree with the point you made. Also, as a Jew, i found the comment about you at “least should be able to understand the bible because your jewish: to have strong antisemetic undertones…i guess some people are homophobic and antisemitic. Thangs again for the great read

Susan Benton

My objection to Ellen as a spoksesman for J.C. Penney’s is that she has no talent. She is not funny, her attempts at warm seem contrived, and she is just not that interesting. I once hear a woman sas she was really good – but when I ask ‘at what, or why’ she couldn’t answer. The fact is Ellen deGeneres is just plain uninteresting. I’m a TV addict and I’d rather watch nothing than watch her.

Warnerdennis

DON’T WATCH HER SHOW!!!

Dennis Carstens

I know a gay person, for his protection I will not say who he is or how I know him but, he has described the torment he went through over his sexuality and it is sad and the anti-gay bigots should be ashamed of their ignorance.

When he was a young teen he would literally cry himself to sleep every night and pray to God that he would wake up in the morning and like girls so he could be as normal as everyone else. Praying to God to make him like girls. Does this sound like something someone chooses?

Bernie, when you wrote “Most Christians, of course, are not as disturbing as these people”. You misstated it. You should have written, “Most Christians are not as disturbed as these people.” It would have been more accurate.

MediaHitSquad

I’m with ‘ya, Bernie! The first paragraph of this article did a great job putting into words how I often feel. Keep up the good work.

Keith

My opinion is that if JC Penny wants to hire Ellen, they have the right to do do. As long as they’re not trying to force a agenda, like a political one, down our throats, I really couldn’t care less either way. I have nothing against gays, they’re human beings and God’s children like everybody else. However, your calling people who believe that gayness is a choice “stupid” smacks of the same arrogance of the Left that you rightly decry. We really don’t know for certain what causes homosexuality. For example, I read that someone (I forgot who) estimated that about half of gays are born that way, and the other half are gay because they were sexually abused when they were kids. You say we can disagree on gay marriage in a civil and respectful manner, surely we can do the same on the origins of homosexuality.

Nancy

I agree with you. I have no problem with people living the life they choose for themselves. And I also agree that many choose to be gay. What really does disgust me is the political agenda of the left, and the way they are forcing other people’s gay lifestyle down our throats and rubbing our faces in it with complete disregard for what we think, feel, and choose.

How is forcing the rest of us to accept openly gay people fair to us? It’s not. And the left most definitely has an agenda to force gay and lesbian lifestyle on our culture SPECIFICALLY to destroy the nuclear family and to change our culture, not to mention to reduce the population.

People have the right to live their lives privately the way they choose. But people also have the right to reject those people who’s lifestyle, whatever it may be, they find offensive.

The political agenda of the left is causing many people to reject anyone who is gay because they don’t want to be forced to accept something in their face that they disapprove of. That’s it. No one is threatening to arrest anyone for being gay, or prevent them fro earning a living. But the media has no right to force the rest of us to ‘accept’ what we don’t want to have pushed in our faces.

Joe

I agree with your sentiments, Mr. Goldberg, as a Christian, though I have slight hesitation still…as much as I find the “I’m not a bigot” line attached to “Ellen Degenerate” disgusting, I empathize with those who feel duped by homosexuals after just being nice and trusting that Gays just want to be treated with dignity…when school curricula are adjusted to suggest homosexuality is normal and fine, when gay marriage is argued, in my opinion, illegally, i.e California, THEN kindhearted Christians are offended and outraged…they feel lied to and on the opposite side of the fence of what Christians have been lambasted for for years: “Keep your morals out of politics!” If Ms. Degeneres is simply promoting JC Penney, then yeah, no big deal, and Christians should teach their children the way of Wisdom, Love and Truth…but if Ms. Degeneres and JC Penney show some overt support of any grander homosexual agenda, then hey, organized disagreement and challenge are valid.

P.S.–I just finished reading “Bias” and enjoyed it very much…apropos given today Andrew Breibart died…

Richard Hilger

Some of these folks might do well to look in scripture for the “beam in your own eye” section. In their self-righteous certainty, is there any appreciation for the transgression of intolerance?

Richard Hilger

I haven’t shopped at J.C. Penny in years, but I plan on starting again, now.

TOMMY FREEDOM

ELEN, THE POSTER IDIOT FOR HOMOS, YES WE NEED TO MAINSTREAM GAYS, WE ARE DESTROYING OUR CHRISTIAN CULTURE FOR NO REASON.

Ellen L.

Religion is such a slippery slope! You said it was anti-black before it was anti-gay bigotry. But as the humorous parody song goes, everyone is anti someone “but nobody likes the Jews”. The bible is often interpreted by those who want to or are brought up to believe so as a black and white statement of what is, but it is not. Interpretation, as you know, comes in many flavors. Reading between the lines in the “Bible” is so important, and there are many interpretations of every line in the bible, but most people just don’t see it that way. After all, how do we know that Abraham’s father was an idol maker? It is NOT in the Bible. There are scholars that interpret the homosexual forbiddance in the bible in other ways that make sense to me. Also, (I’m paraphrasing) it does not say that a woman cannot lie next to another woman… only a man. It also says a man cannot spill his seed on the ground… we all know that his humanly impossible to always deposit into another human being and we assume that means into a female. One of the ideas is that procreation was the purpose behind these statements. Back to the topic, I was never a great fan of Ellen even before I knew she was gay, but sometimes I enjoy her antics and her show and there is nothing wrong with her being a spokesperson for Penny’s.

Lindy Robertson Jr.

Mr. Goldberg:
If being opposed to the homosexual agenda makes me a Christian bigot, then so be it. I will also say that my respect for you has greatly diminished after reading this article. FYI: There are two types of Christians in the world: Those who say they are Christian and aren’t and those who say they are Christian and really are Christian. I have an idea that it is those who really are that you have a problem with.

Richard Hilger

Where in the scriptures does Jesus condemn homosexuals?

Ellen’s Gay? When did that happen???

Interesting statistic: Homosexuality has been scientifically identified in over 1500 species. Homophobia, only one.
That is all.

Dan T

Anyone that still has a conscious needs to start worrying that ANYONE that disagrees with engaging in homosexality IS NOW seen as an enemy of mankind.

We are entering very, very dangerous times.

Vernon bay

I agree it is not for me to judge that time will be here for us all. But would say it seems to me it’s been the other side that screams the loudest if they do not get their way. And that is Gay marriage rights. So Mr Goldberg were do we draw the line on moral issues?

p.anthony

Mr. Goldberg,

I do agree. Ms. DeGeneres does seem to be a very nice person, supports many charitable causes, has a very popular daytime television show during which she has remained fairly non controversial.
The decisions of a private company are really none of my business. If a company engages in activity or behaves a way that offends me, I do not patronize that business. That simple.
And if I may be blunt, there are far more important issues, personally, socially and economically that are of immediate concern that I simply do not have any time, energy or concern to give to any gay movement or cause.

Joe

Mr. Anthony,
You contradict yourself. You say, first, that “the decisions of a private company are really none of (your) business. But then you say “If a company engages in activity or behaves in a way that offends me, I do not patronize that business.” So it *IS* your business what a company does; you make choices based on what it does, and whether it offends you. That, Sir, is precisely what the people urging folks not to patronize Penney’s are doing. So, what’s your beef with them?

P. Anthony

Joe,
If I can respond to your cryptic response by the numbers. I did not contradict myself, look up the word. I do not have a “beef” with the protesting group, I simply do not agree with them or their tactics. The group and you are the ones who have a “beef” with someone.
By the way, it’s called capitalism, you should probably look that up as well.

Neil Blam

Bernie, my problem is, and has always been, with people that feel the need to tell you about their sexuality. I practice what I preach, and try not to bore others with my exploits. I insist on the same from others, whatever their propensity. If they insist on pushing the matter, I will ignore them from then on. It applies to everyone, from Ellen to Charlie Sheen.

Dain

If Ellen were AGAINST redefining marriage and represented a store where gays shopped they would be screaming bloody murder. And nobody would be calling them bigots.

Dianne

God is and will always be the only judge. It is not up to us to judge others…period!

Topper

First off, we all make judgments. It’s impossible not to. Everyday choices are judgments. It’s foolish to pretend otherwise. When a person judges, he/she also forms an opinion. But an opinion is not necessarily the same as a judgment. Opinions are often framed by our fears, pride or ignorance. If all we had were human opinions, we might agree with those who say we should never judge. But we have Scripture and God’s laws. DISCERNING judgment is not wrong, nor un-Biblical. DISCERNING MEANS… showing insight and understanding…Exhibiting keen insight and good judgment; perceptive. The wrong kind of judging is condemning. The right kind of judging is properly evaluating moral (or doctrinal) matters with the right kind of spirit.

We should be careful with the “not judging” axiom. There is a rational basis for moral judgment. If we don’t judge, then we can not define the bad. If we can’t do that, then we can not define what is good either. The “don’t judge” me has been popular in recent years but if we trace it back to its roots we find that it comes from post-modernism. Good and evil are determined by judging based on the law, and in our case, the constitution as it applies to social issues. Normative judgments are what tells us the Nazis are morally wrong.

Gary Stein

Dianne,

We are not plants.

They are the only living things that do not judge otehrs. And “God” didn’t tell anyone not to judge someone or something.

That would make us all carrots. God is not a carrot.

Gay rights is anti-morality. Homosexuality will always be opposed BECAUSE of the people that engage in it. They feed off of other people’s children.

History proves that.

Jeremy Bender

I do not want to offend anyone but for those who actualy think being gay is a choice, there is a high chance you are actually gay. I mean there is a reason you hear prominent anti-gay activists have affairs with men. Only someone who is gay would think it is a choice wether you give into temptation. As a straight man I cannot imagine being with another guy. This is not a choice, I just have no attraction. If you do believe it is a choice that means that you infer that you could be gay if you want to. It is as if people think Ellen will the trick children to think being gay is more fun than being straight. If people don’t want to shop at JC Penny cause of Ellen that is their right as an American. However by saying someone should be fired because they are gay due to the fact it’s like a mental disorder, deviant behavior or what ever the uneducated call it is like saying someone who is bipolar should be fired too. Also If you are against deviancy then you are against the founding fathers of the monotheistic religions. Abraham, Issac and Jacob were polygamist and Isaac and Jacob married their cousins. People kept changing the rules in the middle ages for Christians because they apparently knew what Jesus wanted better than Jesus himself wanted. I urge people to at least think for themselves and review history before preaching everything they are told. Religion is is only good if it inspires love, not hate.

DavidB

@ Jeremy,

You’re an idi__. No, no, I apologize. You’re simply duped by the cunningness of those that seduce the minds of the feeble.

Duh, dude, you realize that if you speak out against immorality that doesn’t mean you want to be immoral. So, opposing homosexuality makes a person as much a homosexual, as it does make a person a bank robber for opposing the people that rob banks.

And if you’re going to bring up Jesus around gay rights issues, to Jesus, marriage is a man and a woman. He never mentioned one word about approving homosexuality. In “fact” as an orthodox Jew, (since you call on history as a guide) homosexuals do not get support and celebration.

And on history? Naomi and Ruth and David and Jonathan ARE NOT heroes of the gay community. They were heterozexuals that loved each other. Yeah, believe it or not, you can actually love someone of the same gender, that is not from your immediate family . . . without that meaning sexual intercourse.

Also, in the world of Jesus-style “religion”, encouraging others to sin, or redefining sin a birth condition to be excused is absurd as well. And of course evil as well.

Now, in the world of secularism – which is a fancy phrase for ANTI-Christian, deviants can indeed be elevated to star status.

Jeremy Bender

I think you misinterpreted what I said. I was talking about the choice argument, not the gays are bad argument. The gay is not a choice argument is provable. I should clarify that only people who sincerely believe it’s a choice are probably gay, not just people who believe its a choice without thinking about what that means. They have actually done experements to prove it gay is not a choice. The gay is bad argument is up to you. Also you need to realize that it’s very, very, very ironic your saying if we should use history as a guide on to treat people. Considering your faith may have been historically one of the most persecuted faiths. When I said history as a guide I meant it’s hypocritical to be against polygamy when other people do it when the founding fathers of your religion were polygamist and some of them married their cousins. Also you could say historically as time goes on people become less prejudice. One thing I think needs to be said is if you try to impose your beliefs on others you end up with really bad consequences. Whether its the Soviet Union and aithiesism, the middle ages and Christianty or Al Qaeda, it makes life horrible for everyone. That’s fine if your religious, but public policy should not impose religion on others.

Topper

Saying that homosexuality is unchangeable is fallacious. The argument is illogical in that is assumes if a condition is unchangeable, it is therefore desirable. We are all predisposed to certain weaknesses and unwanted desires and behaviors. That does not mean we should embrace it as a desirable end result to practice. Especially when homosexuality has been factually documented as a very unhealthy sexual behavior, both mentally and physically.

Know any former Blacks, Asians, Indians, or any other ethnicity? I don’t think so … but their are plenty of former LGBTQs … Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) http://pfox.org/about_us.html

But freedom is just that, as long as the one practicing an aberrant sexual behavior is not demanding that government enforce the validation of their personal aberrant sexual predilections. Then it infringes on the fundamental right of conscience.

Jeremy Bender

@Topper If your argument is we should control gay people because their sexual behavior is dangerous, then why not control everyone from that perspective. We should make sure that Guns will not be manifactured for public use because someone could kill someone. That argument is horrible. Should we force fat people to lose weight because it’s unhealthy. Also there are gay animals in nature, so it is a natural phenomenon. Also there are plenty of former ethnicities like Michael Jackson.

PJ

Dear Bernie,

I was a fan of yours until this rant on O’Reilly, which, as you should understand, makes right-thinking people have less respect for your intelligence.

By the leftist language you used it is clear that you don’t understand that you bought into all the lies of the leftist political agenda of the past half century that turned the word homosexual and gay into a noun instead of an adjective as it has been for all of human history. There are people that have same-sex attractions, and people that perform perverted sexual acts, but there is no such thing as someone “being” a homosexual or “being” gay.

Can’t you see, by going from the order of feeling and the order of doing to the order of being you create a class of people. An african-American doesn’t feel black or do black, he is black. By labeling people “gay” or “homosexual” rather than see homosexual as feelings or actions you win the argument about whether such beavior should be accepted as normal and natural in our society because one cannot discriminate against “who” a person is.

An intelligent person can see through this shallow ephemistic political agenda of the past few decades; but you did nothing but conform to it and support it in your rant. It was the single greatest support I have ever heard for a leftist agenda on Fox News.

The human species is sexual, which by definition means heterosexual, for purposes of union and procreation. Of course some people have disordered feelings and attractions, and some people choose to act upon them by performing intrinsically disordered acts, but please don’t use the words gay and homosexual to label people. It’s insulting to those that have same-sex attractions to be pigeonholed with such a label, and it contributes to the leftist ideology that seeks to normalize deviant behavior by labeling people with disordered same-sex attraction as an identity.

You sounded very bigoted and irrationally emotional by calling people bigots who believe that it is not right to reward and hold up someone that chooses to publicly act out their disordered sexual feelings with an objectively deviant lifestyle. Please have more respect for truth and goodness.

Thank you for listening.

Paul Courtney

Bernie: No doubt some of the emails, like some comments here, prove your point that there is a streak of anti-gay bigotry on the right, but I believe calling for Ellen to be fired is not bigotry. Gays made a huge step toward wide (not universal) acceptance/tolerance when the movement emerged in the 70’s with the motto, “keep gov’t out of the bedroom.” But gay marriage is nothing less than a demand that gov’t welcome their bedroom into city hall, and Ellen is a vocal supporter. Some of us on the religious right who believe in limited gov’t have been perfectly willing to live and let live. We didn’t stop gays from having a ceremony (Don Imus will preside, so long as you don’t do it at the Four Seasons), have a cake and a party, smash a glass if you like, but why should gov’ts of the people etc. be compelled to recognize this arrangement as the same as a marriage arrangement that existed before gov’t existed, before CHURCHES existed? This is not a civil rights issue unless you believe civil rights can be created from whole cloth, as opposed to the inalienable rights perceived by the founders, and the rights later recognized by sufficient majorities in an amendment process. Gays can amend the Constitution, and if they’re right on this (which I think not), it will happen, but it will take awhile. Am I a bigot for standing on this ground?
I have a few more questions. Some of the comments here are along the line, “judge not lest ye be judged (one of my personal favorites)” and “we’re all sinners” (no doubt). Other posts from gays who sound very reasonable, are they agreeing being gay is something not to be judged? That the urge is a sin? The conduct? The over-the-top promiscuous conduct that spread aids to other gays, and druggies? Or is the conduct perfectly ok because you’re following an urge, in which case those kind folks who imply it’s something not to be judged-just bigots? Have we ever heard Ellen or any gay activist condemn promiscuous gays and call for self-restraint, as a matter of public health? Did “conservative” gays like A. Sullivan oppose the push for fed. spending on a cure for aids when a bit of self-control was an immediate solution? Have they ever considered the broad opposition to gay marriage, even among those accepting of gays, is a signal that they’ve gone too far? No, nice people like Ellen demand the right to marry NOW, and if we push back, we’re bigots. Maybe I misunderstood Bernie, and boycott is ok, but calling for her to be fired, bigot. I normally have no difficulty seeing the principle behind Bernie’s distinctions, but not here. Gay activists can fight, and Million Moms can fight back. Ellen is very nice, but she’s pushing gay marriage and we can push back. Some of those pushing with me may be bigots, but many of us are pushing on a principled, secular basis. My impression, Bernie, is you include us, and if so, you’re wrong. Yes I have some animosity on this, but it’s quite rational.

Kim

Ellen is one of the best role models on the planet for joy, happiness, generousity and unconditional love. Values and attributes we should all be striving for to be good “Christians” or any religeous title … just good and evolving human beings. Go Ellen!

Nancye

What I don’t understand is why does a column on a lesbian produce this many responses? Who cares? It’s really unimportant!!! And so is she.

Brendan Horn

Bernard,

The title of your column might be bigotry on your part. I am pretty sure you could have found bigots of many different types. Why are you focusing on Christian bigotry?

John Daly

Read his past columns.

RecknHavic

While Bernie does point out the hypocrisy of many groups, he seems to have a special liking for those who follow Jesus. There’s plenty of bigotry directed at Christians too, yet this never seems to upset him.

John Daly

Completely untrue. I’ve followed his work for years and have read his books. He’s against bigotry in all of its forms and has been far more critical of it coming from the left than he has from the Christian community.

The source shouldn’t matter. Bigotry is bigotry.

RecknHavic

Ive only followed Bernie’s blog for the last year and have read his snarky remarks directed at Christians before so Ill restate your words, “bigotry is bigotry”.

Yes I agree, he condemns the bigotry from the Left directed at the Right far more often than anything else. But I was specifically speaking to his views about Christians. I dont think he’s a Christian hater. I just see his views as prejudiced (in the mildest sense of the word) when he addresses Christians.

Joe

First, I suppose I should apologize for, umm…over-posting, this being my fourth or fifth post on this topic; but new points, new questions, keep occurring to me. OK, so….Question for Mr. Goldberg, and those who agree with his column. Suppose, instead of DeGeneres, Penney had chosen a prominent, outspoken Evangelical opponent of homosexual marriage and the entire homosexual…um…movement, or lobby, or whatever; let’s say Rush Limbaugh, perhaps. Now, mind you, this guy would say nothing controversial, but simply urge folks to patronize the store. Can there be any doubt that the usual homosexual groups would recognize (as, apparently, we are not allowed to do) a subtext, a subliminal endorsement of his positions? And if they did, and organized a boycott of the store, would that make them all bigots, Mr. Goldberg? (Well, many of the activists *are* bigots, but for other reasons.) Sauce for the goose….

Jack Cox

Wow—See what you have provoked Bernie! Your a bad boy!!

Joe

I have a question for Mr. Goldberg and those who are so upset about these folks essentially boycotting Penney.
What if Penney had chosen, say…Sean Penn or Matt Damon as a spokesman, and I had said “I won’t buy from a store they support (or for the matter of that, see a movie either of them is in), because they’re prominent supporters of political positions I find offensive.” Does that make me a bigot? I’d sure not think so. And I suggest that the choice of DeGeneres makes the point that Penney supports her political positions (vis a vis homosexuality), that I find offensive, so….How’s that different?

RecknHavic

Its one thing to boycott, its another to ask to have someone fired.

RecknHavic

Its one thing to boycott, its another to ask to have someone fired (which is a tactic of the Left).

Joe

Why, Havic? I decline to see movies with Matt Damon or Sean Penn, for example, because their politics offend me. I am, in effect, asking them to be “fired” – that is, I’m hoping (however futilely) that their movies will become less popular, and they’ll not get so many script-offers. Your view might make sense if, say, Penney employed a cashier who happened to be homosexual. But they chose DeGeneres *because* she’s prominently homosexual. (Nobody with a brain can truly deny that.) Her positions offend me, so I decline to shop there…and want them to know it. This isn’t a “tactic of the left.” It’s basic free-market conservatism. They can hire whomever they choose to represent them…and I can spend (or not spend)*my own money* where and as I choose, in response. Nobody is saying DeGeneres should be jailed, or Penney fined, or whatever. We simply won’t patronize a store that openly supports political/social positions that offend us.

Joe

It strikes me there’s another point to be made here: Why DeGeneres? Why’d they pick her as a spokesman? I suggest it goes beyond naive, to utterly, willfully disinenguous, not to see that Penney, by this choice, is trumpeting “We support efforts to mainstream homosexuality! We support (in effect) the homosexual lobby, the “not that there’s anything wrong with that” notion. Well, OK, Penney’s got a perfect right to do that, but it’s a political choice (though perhaps driven primarily by profit), and those of us who do NOT support those positions, those efforts to force change on Western culture, have as much right to express our disagreement with our own dollars. It isn’t bigotry, unless one begins with the notion that saying homosexuality is neither “normal” nor (by our particular faiths) moral, is inherently bigotry. To say that is to say that particular political and religious positions are forbidden. I’d hope conservatives don’t think that.

Joe

Mr. Goldberg, you could not be more off-base than you are with this column. The logic is simple: My church says (and I believe, and would believe personally, even if I were not Catholic) that homosexuality is immoral. I also find it offensive personally, expecially given the way “open” homosexuals (like DeGeneres) are trying to change our culture. To me, it’s a bit like having a girl from Nevada’s Bunny Ranch as their spokesman. The activity is legal, but offensive to me, so…I choose to spend my money elsewhere. Nobody is trying to pillory DeGeneres. Surely, it’s the essence of conservatism that I have the right to vote with my wallet, if something offends me. It isn’t bigotry…any more than had it been a gal from the Bunny Ranch.

gon4beer

I am not particularly religious, and I don’t really care if anyone else is or isn’t. I con’t really care if gay marriage is sanctioned, as long as it is the States that make the decisions.
As for the existence of gays, if you are a Christian, you have to accept that God made all creatures big and small and some of them are gay. Even a cursory trapse down the literature on the subjectleads to the conclusion that gays have ALWAYS been part of society. If you give God crdit for creation, then he gets credit for ALL of it, and we need to figure out how to deal with it. I just hope the the Federal Govt. can stay out of this and let the states figure it out.

Joe

Ummm….God also made pedophiles…and Hitler. If we accept the idea that homosexuality is genetic (and I, for one, have no idea) the most we can say is that a homosexual cannot help what he *is*…but he *can* help what he *does*. That is, there’s nothing wrong with saying “I’m attracted to my own sex but as a Catholic (or Evangelical or whatever)I recognize it as wrong, so I won’t indulge it.” Or, even if one rejects that homosexuality is a *sin*, per se, “I recognize that, for millenia, Western Civilization has considered it wrong; and the culture in which I choose to live considers it wrong, so…I won’t indulge it.” And before you ask whether we want to “force” homosexuals to live celibate lives, I ask whether you want to “force” pedophiles to do so. If the action is wrong – and many of us consider homosexual activity wrong – then, yes, in both cases. (Note, I’m not comparing homosexuality to pedophilia in any direct sense, except to say that, in my view, each is “wrong”.)

Let truth ring

The eternal war of decent people versus human-monsters is never going to go away JUST because the monsters claim to be our good neighbors.

What else would an insatiable beast say? They can’t devour our children unmasked. And once the facade is taken down, it is youth that the monsters desire above all. And these creatures do not have any boundaries to feed their lusts. Going as far as debasing decent relationships like David and Jonathan, and demanding blasphemy to tell their tale of Jesus and John, and delivering nothing but the waste of selfish desires.

Whether female (Sapphic lesbianisn) or male (pederasty) homosexuality is an enemy of sound society. And always will be. The delaration that past and present queer artists bring us amazing gifts, is never going to allow them to feed on our children.

Yet Harvey Milk, a modern pederast by his own “proud” admission, is now a hero taught to children in California elementary schools, as part of the “progressive” movement.

Even the ancient Greeks knew that homosexual liberation only enslaves the society it feeds upon:

The most famous example of this kind of motivation is found in Oscar Wilde’s famous defence of himself during his trials, when he compared ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ to the love of David for Jonathan, and defended its nobility and beauty with reference to works by Plato, Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It was a theatrical tour de force, but did not stand up to the testimony of boy prostitutes.

Wilde of course lied throughout much of his trials, and this particular line of defence was perhaps hypocritical and well-rehearsed,

but Wilde really did believe himself to be part of the ancient and noble tradition of paederastia.

Wilde used such lists to position himself in relation to queer culture, and this was really more important than any other motivation: Wilde was first and foremost culturally/aesthetically identified. In particular, he referred to past gay artists, thus declaring himself to be part of a cultural elite, as opposed to heterosexual modern philistines. In the last years of his life, exiled, bankrupt, with no more need to defend his character, he said to Frank Harris: ‘What you call vice, Frank, is not vice. It is as good to me as it was to Caesar, Alexander, Michelangelo, and Shakespeare. It was first of all made sin by monasticism, and it has been made a crime in recent times by the Goths – the Germans and the English – who have done little or nothing since to refine or exalt the ideals of humanity.’

The Wilde defence should also be seen in the context of queer cultural elitism that was an important factor in some branches of the gay emancipation movement in the 1890s. For example, Adolf Brand, who objected to the ‘third sex’ theory with its effeminate emphasis, edited Der Eigene: Ein Blatt für mannliche Kultur (The Exceptional: A Magazine for Male Culture) (which ran from 1896 through 1931), and in 1903 he founded the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen (Community of the Exceptional). Brand was a self-proclaimed ‘anarchist and pederast’ who celebrated the bonding of heroic young athletes in ancient cultures and in the Wandervogelbewegung, the German youth movement. His co-founder Benedict Friedlaender tried to split up Hirschfeld’s Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and emphasized the ‘physiological friendship’ of the ancient Greeks, as in his book Die Renaissance des Eros Uranios (1904). Both men were married, as, of course, was Wilde.

The idea that ‘homosexuality is exceptional by nature’ (Cowan 1988) is still current, usually related to the supposed insights of our status as outsiders, and a curious amalgam of ‘intergrade’ features: androgyny, creativity, shamanism. The ‘Uranian’ poet Ralph Nicholas Chubb in ‘Note on Some Water-Colour Drawings’ (1929) wrote ‘David and Jonathan, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, Christ and the youthful John, Plato, Socrates, Michelangelo and Shakespeare are company good enough for me.’ The bisexual writer Robert McAlmon (1896–1956), lover of the painter Marsden Hartley, once astonished a Paris bartender with a passionate defence of Plato and other ‘creative geniuses’ who celebrated masculine beauty: ‘I’m a bisexual myself,’ McAlmon shouted, ‘like Michelangelo, and I don’t give a damn who knows it.’ This sense of being part of an exceptional group is found among the working classes as well, as with a queer prisoner interviewed by a prison doctor in the early 1920s who listed ‘Shakespeare, Coleridge, De Quincey, Rosa Bonheur, Joan of Arc, Beethoven, Wagner and Napoleon’ to support his view that ‘most of the world’s geniuses can be traced directly to the homosexual’; the sex reformer Dr William Robinson said that very many gay men and lesbians in the 1920s made such claims in interviews with him: ‘they speak of Shakespeare, Byron and Whitman as belonging to their class, as if their homosexuality . . . were a well-established historical fact’ (Chauncey 1994).

To – Let The Truth Ring —-There’s no way someone who wasn’t secretly gay would do that much research to post on here. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Either come out or go away. Straight people don’t think this much about gay stuff…
Good for Bernie on this one. Christians should be loving, not mean all the time.

Joe

“Oh, you big meanies! Waaah!” These folks are choosing to spend their own money somewhere other than with an organization that offends them. So? And yes, it is offensive, from a couple of perpsectives. As a conservative Catholic, I consider homosexual activity wrong…and offensive. I’m not advocating we “punish” DeGeneres…simply say I won’t shop where she’s the role-model. As I suggest above, it’s rather like having a girl from the Bunny Ranch be your spokesman. What she does is legal, but distasteful and offensive – to me; and I’ll express my distaste by not shopping there. Does that make me “mean”? Don’t think so. By the way, there’s a serious (non-fringe, non-frivilous) movement to get the APA to declare pedophilia “normative”. If it does, must we all suddenly shift our attitudes, and “accept” child molestation?

TD

Joe,
If you believe gay activity is wrong THEN DON’T DO IT. Pretty easy solution. Yes, you are welcome to voice your distaste, disapproval and whatever all you want. But don’t expect people not to fight back. Young people see this more and more for what it is – prejudice and bigotry about something you don’t understand. So, if you want to look like one of the racist Southerners during the 60’s, then by all means, keep yelling. You can be “mean” all you want, but all this stuff does is make Christians look like bitter, mean-spirited, self-righteous… I’ll stop there. (Are you obsessed with pedophilia? – you’ve brought it up several times) If you don’t understand consenting adults, it’s scary.

Joe

If you believe rape is wrong, then “don’t do it!” Pretty simple, huh? And, of course, utterly silly. I believe homosexuality is wrong, but I don’t think it should or must be outlawed. I simply think society should be free to deter it by means that don’t involve the use of force, as law does. It’s the homosexuals who have brought the coercion of government into the issue.
As to pedophilia, it isn’t me, but the APA – the same wonderful folks who decided for us that homosexuality is “normative” – who are now debating whether to put pedophilia in the same category. I’ve heard prominent homosexuals recoil in horror at the comparison: “Oh no! *WE’RE OK,* but *those people…!” And I’ve been waiting for the next shoe to drop – and now it’s about to, and the usual homosexual responses (“Children must be protected! Consenting adults!”) all go away, once the APA declares that children have the capacity – and thus the right – to “consent”, and that pedophilia is “normative”. What, then, are you protecting kids from? A normative, consensual activity? And if the homosexuals lose *those* arguments, then…pedophilia, horribly, becomes “normalized” just like homosexuality, based on the same APA “authority”, and for the same reasons.

Joe

Oh, and yes, I’m “obsessed” with pedophilia, in the sense that there’s clear evidence (the current fight within the APA, including quite prominent figures in the organization arguing strongly for “normalization”) that it’s the next point on the slippery slope that started with homosexuality, and that horrifies me. I have to ask – if the APA declares pedophilia “normative” and determines that children have the capacity to consent – what distinguishes normalization of homosexuality from normalization of pedophilia? By accepting one – by granting the APA the moral authority simply to *declare* it “normative” and accepting that judgment as if those guys were the arbiters of morality for society – we lose our defenses against the next step. In the words of the title of an old Manly Wade Wellman short-story collection, there are “Worse Things Waiting”…and we’ve surrendered to them, in advance.

DavidB

The only reason this article is up so long is that it bashes Christians.

The only really legal form of hatred in western society.

Bernie, you’re simply an elitist.

It’s always been the same with your kind.

chuck.tatum

You’re wrong on your first point. The only way a column on this site gets bumped is in order only. There’s no preference for leaving up an article for controversy sake. Nice play with the victim card.

You’re wrong on your second point, unless you can site this “only really legal” law.
Playing the victim card TWICE?

Even if your last 2 points were correct, and they aren’t, your whole comment would only be half right.

Dave

Bernard, what upset me (and I am a conservative Christian) is that you spoke of bigotry running through conservative America, but left out the extreme bigotry of the liberals. I have friends who are gay, who respect my views and I respect theirs. They have a right to live as they choose. However, in California even after the traditional view of marriage has been affirmed twice by the voters, the liberal elites and the courts have once again forced gay marriage on our culture. What happened to the democratic process in this one? Do you realize that there is not one state where gay marriage has been approved by the voters? Each time it has either been forced on a state by the courts, or the liberal legislature has put it in place over the protests of the citizens. And if you want to see bigotry just tell the gay community that you stand for traditional marriage. I have concluded that they will not be satisfied with me saying that they have a right to do what they want. They will only be satisfied when conservatives approve of and affirm the goodness of their lifestyle.

ph16

Dave,

Bernie has spent a lot of time covering the “extreme bigotry of the liberals” especially in the media. While it’s most likely true that “They (I assume you mean liberals and/or gays) will only be satisfied when conservatives approve of and affirm the goodness of their lifestyle.” that doesn’t justify calling for someone to be fired. We’re all human, we all fall into sin, and frankly we’re no better than she is.

D2356

I have a small business and I never tell a customer he is a bigot, because he will never call again. If a business I shop at makes a stand that calls me a bigot, I have no choice, I don’t shop there. To select a lesbian as your spokesman is to make such a statement, there are other stores who are smart enough not to. Why is catering to the 3% regarded as noble but offending the 68% as smart? Comparing this to the civil rights movement is parroting this administration’s ploy of “if you disagree with me you are racist”

John Daly

By suggesting that JC Pennys is “making a statement” by having Ellen as their spokeswoman, you’re suggesting that she is only defined by her homosexuality and not by her popularity as an entertainer.

I don’t understand this beef at all. You’d think she was the first gay spokesperson for a company.

DaveC

John I grew up in the south in a city known for racial trouble and no one repeat no one ever hired a klansman to advertise their store why because it would please nobody and stir up problems that would hurt their business. If you support a cause do it personally and not so to hurt your store or employees.

John Daly

A klansman? Are you really comparing a gay person to a klansman?

A klansman stands for racism, hate, intolerance, and even violence.

A gay person is merely attracted to people of the same sex.

If Jack Black was JC Penny’s new spokesperson, would you accuse the company of trying to push forth an agenda of obesity? Watch out everyone, JC Penny’s wants your kids to be fat!

Please.

Dave

If only gay people were simply people who are attracted to the same sex. Where I live, gay people are militant haters of anyone who will not say that their lifestyle is good and should be taught to children as a good and healthy lifestyle. It is not enough to give them freedom to do their own thing, we have to say is is good and healthy. They will not rest until they have redefined marriage as something very different than what it has been from the beginning until now.

John Daly

Dave,

Is Ellen a militant hater?

Paul Courtney

John: No, Dave did not compare a gay to a klansman, he compared a shopkeeper to JC Penney. I understood him to say the shopkeeper who hires someone as a spokesperson (as opposed to a cashier or stock clerk) who has baggage should not be surprised if a customer equates the spokesperson’s baggage to the shopkeeper’s views. Ellen is not a militant hater, but she is not a mere entertainer who happens to be gay. I don’t follow her, but following the news, she made the news by coming out (and her then partner later-poof- became not gay. How does that work?). She has made the news by using her position to push gay marriage and making a big show of getting married to a female. She may be the nicest person in daytime talk but she has put her views out there. Million Moms are letting the shopkeeper know that the customer is drawing a connection, that JC Penney appears to support gay marriage. They will stop being a customer unless the shopkeeper breaks it off. This is not bigotry. We can only guess, but my guess is, if Ellen were merely an entertainer who happened to be gay but was not pushing gay marriage, Million Moms would not be attacking her.

Leo

I think homosexuality is not only tolerable but commendable and worthy of promotion.We should teach it to our pre-schoolers and children in all grade levels. We should hold clinics that allow our children to experiment so they can decide upon their lifestyle. In fact we should pass a federal law that requires all straight people to be gay by 2030. Why stop there? Pedophilia should also be accepted along with beastiality and polygamy. . Let’s really be open minded. Why not promote obesity, drug addiction and wife swapping. Wow! Let freedom ring.

John Daly

Or… we could just let a gay person be on commercials without having a stroke over it.

steve prichard

John,
She can be on any commercial for any company she wants. She just won’t be paid with my hard-earned money. John, don’t you realize that if the whole world turned homosexual, the human race would die out and cease to exist?! Surely you would agree to that. And don’t give me anecdotal stories of insemination by gay couples. You know what I mean.

TD

Yes, Steve – if we don’t hate them then the WHOLE WORLD is going to turn gay and thus wipe out mankind forever. Do you guys really listen to yourselves? There has always been and always will be a small segment of humans who are gay. It’s a naturally occurring variance in creation.

John Daly

Huh? Is that what this is all about? If Ellen’s allowed to shill for JC Pennys, the whole world will turn gay???

This is exactly why I don’t support drug legalization.

steve prichard

That’s childish. I guess you guys are looking really hard for hate where there isn’t any. God loves you. And Ellen, too.

John Daly

Steve, I’m a devout Christian. I know God loves me.

He also loves those homosexuals that frighten you so much.

Duane Daum

Bernie, Bravo. I agree with what you said. In addition to bigotry, you might add racism. And yes many of the bigots are religious. If there were more republicans like you I might still be a republican instead of a republicrat.
Peace.

Terry Walbert

Bernie,

Penny’s has every right to hire Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesman. Shoppers also have a right to boycott the store because it hired Ms. DeGeneres. It doesn’t matter what their motives are.

Bob Hadley

I think Bernie’s point would be that in this country everyone has a right to be a bigot and to act legally upon their bigotry but he has every right to publicly assail their bigotry.

I don’t know if I’d go as far as Bernie on this issue, but he apparently made a courageous and constructive decision to speak his mind on this issue. I think his doing so on this website and on O’Reilly’s show probably works against his financial interest.

I also think it’s good that people and groups of people (e.g. conservatives, liberals, libertarians) periodically take a critical look inward. If done so constructively, i.e. based on reason and on real issues (such as in Bernie’s piece above), doing so makes them stronger and better.

I don’t think all gays are necessarily born that way, although most very well may be. And I don’t agree that it’s either purely genetic or it’s a conscious decision. When i was very young, my favorite ice cream was chocolate. That was not a conscious decision and I don’t think it was necessarily genetic.

As I grew older, my favorite ice cream became vanilla. That was not a conscious decision and i doubt that it was purely genetic.

At least some gays apparently have become that way, at least in part, because of early sex play with a homosexual or because of traumatic experiences with heterosexual relationships.

Having said that, whether or to what degree one’s sexuality is inborn, is not relevant to this discussion. Consenting adults should have an absolute right to their sexuality, even if it is a conscious choice. (When, where and how they practice it can be another matter.) And hatred of people simply for being openly gay is a form of bigotry.

To the best of my knowledge, Ellen has never gotten into anyone’s face about her sexuality, like for example I think Madonna has in the past. The media has made a fuss over Ellen’s sexuality, but we all know that the media make a fuss over any and all celebrities’ private lives if its profitable.

And now, the One Million Moms is publicizing Ellen’s sexuality. How many little kids will find out that Ellen is a homsexual from the One Million Moms?

I don’t know if I’d say everyone in the One Million Moms are necessarily bigots, but there are certainly a great many anti-gay bigots, some of whom hide behind religion and some of whom don’t use religion as a cover.

kerry jacoby

“To the best of my knowledge, Ellen has never gotten into anyone’s face about her sexuality, like for example I think Madonna has in the past. The media has made a fuss over Ellen’s sexuality, but we all know that the media make a fuss over any and all celebrities’ private lives if its profitable.”

This is one of the most ignorant comments I have ever seen, and it made me laugh out loud. Just admit you know nothing about Ellen Degeneres.

When she decided to publicly come out on her highly rated sitcom “Ellen,” the episode was planned for over a year and code-named “The Puppy Episode” so that no one would know it was coming or its contents. It was considered one of the most important media moments in gay advocacy history. The transformation of Ellen on the show killed its ratings. No one wanted to hear about her politics. Before coming out publicly at the show’s turning point, in which she declares her homosexuality accidentally over the PA system in an airport, she comes out to her therapist, OPRAH WINFREY. The show got record ratings, and it was a Very Big Deal.

Yes, Ellen has made her sexuality a central point of her public persona since 1997. Everybody in America knew at that time she was dating Anne Heche. In 2008, she married Portia diRossi in California.

Since 1997, it is not the media that has made a big deal of Ellen’s lesbianism. It has been Ellen that centralized, shopped, and traded on it.

Really, if you don’t know about something, just don’t say anything about it.

Bob Hadley

“Since 1997, it is not the media that has made a big deal of Ellen’s lesbianism. It has been Ellen that centralized, shopped, and traded on it.”

You’ve presented little evidence of this. Yes, she’s benefitted from her celebrity status, which was enhanced after she came out. So what? What’s she supposed to do – deny opportunities that came her way after coming out?

Yes, she came out in her sitcom and on Oprah. Again, so what? She did so tastefully. She did not do so with anger, hate, defiance or daring. Apparently she did not have much of an agenda other than discussing her coming out. That is what i meant when I said that Ellen has not, to my knowledge, gotten into anyone’s face about her sexuality.

Yes, some gay advocacy groups, the media and the media market buzzed over Ellen coming out.

But a lot of anti-gay groups and indiduals also elevated Ellen’s celebrity status.

BTW, it doesn’t seem like you were laughing out loud.

Dave

There is absolutely no scientific evidence of gayness being genetic or biological. Zero. To say you are born gay as though it falls into the same category as race sounds really reasonable, but it is a lifestyle choice. People have a right to choose their lifestyle, but to say I have to accept that choice as good and healthy denies my right to my opinion. I read recently where there is a move to redefine pedophilia as “minor attracted behavior.” Sexual abuse of children as a lifestyle choice? Is that where we are going next? We are on a slippery slope, approving behaviors which were once unacceptable one at a time. Where does it take us? Where will it end?

Bob Hadley

“To say you are born gay as though it falls into the same category as race sounds really reasonable, but it is a lifestyle choice.”

Please cite the scientific evidence that “gayness” (as you put it) is a choice.

Dave – When did you make the straight choice? Are you attracted to both men and women but simply choice to lead a hetero-lifestyle? I’m assuming you must be bisexual to feel the way you do.

David R. Zukerman

But would J.C. Penney hire someone Media Matters would like to tar and feather?

joe from louisiana

I attend a Southern Baptist Church and can’t remember homosexuality ever being discussed. Other than the giggling gossip that the music minister is gay. The fact that we all fall short and can be forgiven is our topic du jour. It is unfair to take the extreme viewpoint and paint it as the plural. I am not carried away with the dogma of secularism on controversial subject matter. You believe this way or be labeled as stupid. But when I do hear anyone with visceral hatred of another group, I often wonder if they are harboring secrets about themselves.

Deirdre M Abbott

Mr. Goldberg,
I agree with everything you said. There is a FaceBook page for both One Million Moms and 1 Million People who Support Ellen and J C Penny. the second was started about 24hrs ago and already had about 57,000 likes. I’ve been watching and timing, the rate is about 5,000 an hour (11:20p-12:40p went from 50,083 to 57,000. The One Million Moms have about 45,000 and they have been operating and spewing their bigotry for a while. I really don’t think JC Penny and Ellen have to much to worry about. These bigots will find someone new to try and intimidate fairly soon (short attention span). they still have to try and get rid of everyone who doesn’t agree with them, and that large a group will keep the going for eternity. There will always be Hate Groups masking themselves in Mom and Apple Pie and (their) American Way. Lucky for us, most Americans are far to smart and caring to be taken in by these bigots who have nothing better to do then to try our lives. At least we can be sure they are learning to read and write, first step for the uneducated and the ignorant.

Dave

Your bigotry towards the One Million Moms sounds very much like their attitude towards J.C.Penney hiring Helen.

LetAllTakeABreath

Bernie:

You have some pretty bad hate mail here that any Christian should be ashamed of. I don’t ever recall Jesus telling anybody to spread hate. Wake up “Christians” if you call yourselves that and love your enemies.

On the other hand Bernie shall we just throw all family values away? Who needs them anyway???

BlithelyBlythe

LetAll,

What makes you think Ellen has no family values? This one always has me wondering too close to the edge… As far as I can see, she’s full of values and respect and responsibility and honesty and… what more do you need? IMO, folks living authentically only serve to shore up and strengthen family values.

kingsgirl

Hey Bernie, I’m so sorry for all of this bizarre hatred being spewed at you in the name of Jesus. I’m a straight, conservative, evangelical Christian who has recently taken the time to actually research the “radical gay agenda” to try to figure out where all of this hate is coming from. I’m shocked and saddened at what sensationalism and lies are being fed to and believed by the Christian community from a handful of organizations. Please, brothers and sisters, these people are image bearers of God and are precious to Him. They are someone’s child or sibling or parent. I don’t care what you believe the Bible says about homosexuality, nothing in the Word of God condones the vile hatred some of you are posting here. Really, are your words and the meditations of your heart honoring to God? Are you Christ-like? Do you love your neighbor? If you are a GLBT person reading this, I want you to know that God loves you, He’s crazy about you and He wants you back. Find a church that will welcome you, they really do exist. These hatefilled people don’t speak God’s truth. They need to realize that if God hates all the same people they hate, then they’ve created their own god in their image. That is the ultimate abomination. Look it up. If you are a Christian, please, for the sake of honoring your God and Savior, open your eyes to the agenda that is being fed to us from those on “our” side. Research and learn. Go to the websites of the organizations leading this fight and look for the panic and fear producing language they use. Go to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website and look at who they have identified as hate groups and why. Then research the organizations leading the struggle for equal rights. Read their mission statements. Read their monthly publications. If you are truly a student of the Word of God, then don’t be afraid to dig into the scriptures that are being used to vilify these people. Even if you come away still believing the English words in our modern translations mean what they seem to mean, you will none the less be blessed to wrestle with understanding God’s word and will at least ponder that there are bible-believing Christians who use sound methods of interpretation who come to a different opinion than what you’ve probably ever thought.

Natalie

Wow! Thanks for being so thoughtful.

Deirdre M Abbott

You are truly a child of you God. You are a walking advertisement for Christianity. You have my utmost respect, for caring enough to “do the research” and to be honest about what you found.

Just for the record, I am a Straight, White Republican who also happens to be a Polytheist. If my reasons for leaving Christianity had anything to do with the bigotry and hate in some of that group, you would be a good reason to return.

In the language of my Deity: Em heset net Jesus
translated: Be in the favor of Jesus

Senetbi….

Tim Ned

As a Christian from Minnesota, and I am told I am quite conservative, I’m not sure how I will vote on same gender marriage that will be put to Minnesota voters shortly. But I do know this. All Americans have rights. And I will defend the rights of others including our fellow Americans who happen to be gay. And at gun point if necessary.

kingsgirl

Tim, if you see this reply, please read my post right above yours. May sanity prevail in this ugliness. I want my Jesus back!

Tell them about the “thesis-><-antithesis" scheme. Tell them why the Establishment is promoting the cancer of homosexuality go on…

Go back to your caves because we're not asleep anymore and we actually have lots and lots of swords. You know that "Dominionism" thing? It's true actually and we already own the Military.

Go back to your cave Bernie and take your Homosexual Virus with you.

John Daly

Okay, now I KNOW this is baloney.

OverPerezHilton

way to prove the articles point

Stan from Maine

Bernie,

We don’t want our children seduced by homosexuals. What they are doing in our schools is pederasty factories.

“What else could one call the love of the Lesbian woman than the Socratic art of love? For they seem to me to have practised love after their own fashion, she the love of women, he of men. For they said they loved many, and were captivated by all things beautiful. What Alcibiades and Charmides and Phaedrus were to him, Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria were to her …”

Campbell 1982, p. 21

John Daly

Is anyone else starting to think that some of these posts from supposed social conservatives are actually from liberal posers? A lot of this stuff reeks of Christian slander.

Zoe

I wish, John Daly. Unfortunately all of these posts are quite, quite real. I know because I have friends who say things like this, all the time, and they really believe what they say. Because, you know, it says so in the Bible. (Sorta.) And you just can’t ignore the Word of God! (Except sometimes, when it suits you.)

John Daly

Really, Zoe? Have you background checked all of them?

I don’t deny that the viewpoint exists. Of course it does. But I do think that among the genuine posters, there’s some baloney being mixed in as well.

Bill Oreilly and Bernie Goldberg called Christian moms & grandmothers Bigots, Fanatics, McCarthyism and a Witch Hunt on Gays. Oreilly and Goldberg was responding to the story of the conservative group, One Million Moms protesting JCPenney for hiring Ellen Degenere. Bill O’Reilly wants to claim to be a Christian, while rejecting Christian beliefs and the Bible

They have joined the gay activists promoting the Gay PAC Alliance with North American Man/Boy Love Pedophile Group. Gay PAC Agenda is to abolish age of consent laws, so they can have sex with children.There is an ever-increasing effort among homosexual organizations to target public school children, to abolish age of consent laws, and to publish “studies” that purportedly show that adult/child sex is not harmful.
We can’t teach about Constitution in school, no prayer, no saluting the flag, no Bible verses. But we get to have the homosexual agenda to abolish age of consent laws, so they can have sex with our children.
Should Christians find hope in the Conservative Christians Republican Party. Today the Conservative Republican Party is promoting the redefinition of marriage and homosexual lifestyle. Does the Conservative Republican party offer an alternative to secular progressivism? The reality is the Conservative Republican Party is not an alternative to liberalism, but a partner, it represents the other face of the same coin. Click here to Read more.

Silver

Cite your sources please. Reliable ones only, thank you.

David

The Gay Agenda:

Our children’s bodies.

The Stonewall business model.

Pederasty IS this movement.

ph16

Let’s turn it around this way: What if an Evangelical Christian or conservative Catholic was the person who became the spokesperson for JC Penney or some other big company. Would you like it if a group of loudmouth liberals and/or atheists demanded that you’d be fired? It’s one thing not to shop at a place because of actions, but to demand a person’s firing is another.

you do realize what BS stands for right? Isnt that the same as cussing? Would a good Christian really say something like that?

Pete

Have some good words about Roland Martin mr.Goldberg? They are such powerless victims the gays…

Eastern/New York Republicanism? No thank you. Their screwing america.

Silver

They’re

the dominator

this article brought out several of those single digit IQ religious wackos.
so happy i never had boring religion forced upon me. talk about living in the past, books that were written thousands of years ago by people who could never hack it in the real world today.
agnostic is much more fun.

Pete

That’s funny. All non-Christian and atheist countries don’t want “gays” around how come?

How come rejection of homosexuality is the standard in Human History? Perhaps because thousand and thousands of years of the process of trial-and-error gave people the lesson that some things belong inside the closet?

If you have a 3 digit IQ you should be able to answer those questions.

Zoe

Pete,

You’re an idiot. First of all, there are no “atheist” countries. But in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Finland — all highly secularized countries — gays are indeed welcomed. So (1) you need to check your facts. And then (2) you need to consider that just because something has existed for most of human history (hatred of Jews, of people who look different, of the left-handed, or of gypsies, or redheads) does not mean it is correct or incontrovertible.

Pete

China, USSR, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, etc…

As for “Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Finland” etc…sure and they are being consumed by Socialists and Gayocrats just like the USA.

And you should check out Corey Feldman’s interview on ABC and Dave Chappelle interviews on Oprah and Inside Actors Studio where he reveals how powerless and innocent the “gays” really are…

Zoe

The US is hardly being consumed by Socialists. You’re poorly informed. The atheist countries you refer to are first and foremost communist, and one of them hasn’t existed for over 20 years, and the rest are all desperately struggling to hold onto power through the exercise of fascism, so I’m not sure what it means that you hold them up as examples. If you think the fascists are so great for being anti-gay, why don’t you move there?

As for #2, I’ve read that pathetic excuse for history before. It’s complete propaganda, and why people choose to believe it is a mystery to me.

Finally, a B-grade evangelical child actor and a bitter comedian are not really where I would consider turning for any kind of authoritative explanation of anything.

David

@ the dominator (gay yuck I’m sure)

You do realize that “LGBT’s” in the 21st century are behaving as they did what 3500-years ago in Sodom?

And for the “L’s,” they are no different than Sappho the female pederast teacher back in 615 BC Greece.

Now go sell your ancient belief systems comeback to the groups still living like the ancient deviants from days of yore. You’ll find them marching in gay pride parades.

Zoe

I don’t think “pederast” means what you think it means. (Hint: Sappho was genetically incapable of being a pederast.)

Members of Bible Study Space

More Bible Believing Christians kill around the world today, then before in History. Thanks to hate speech and More Christians kill around the world today then before in History, thanks to hate speech from Anti Christians Bigots like Berndgold, Oreilly, CNN, Fox and the demonic media in this nation. But God is destroying the nation ande Bigots in the media. God wrath will destroy the anti Bible Believing Christian people with their hate speech.

Bill Oreilly and Bernie Goldberg called Christian moms & grandmothers Bigots, Fanatics, McCarthyism and a Witch Hunt on Gays. Oreilly and Goldberg was responding to the story of the conservative group, One Million Moms protesting JCPenney for hiring Ellen Degenere.

Bill O’Reilly wants to claim to be a Christian,
while rejecting orthodox Christian beliefs and the Bible

1. O’Reilly called Bible-believing Christians, Bigots, Holy Rollers and Fanatics.
2. Fox News promoted the New York Same Sex Marriage law, along with CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC and CBS.
3. Fox News is promoting Margaret Hoover book, ” American Individualism. ” The New Pro-Gay Republican Fox News Generation.
Should Christians find hope in the Conservative Christians Republican Party. Today the Conservative Republican Party is promoting the redefinition of marriage and homosexual lifestyle.
What about the Christian Church? The Gospel of Christ has been reduced to a five minutes prayer to be save, by TBN cult preachers who the secular media promotes. The Biblical worldview that once shaped American cultural, family and public morals is all but lost.
Does the Conservative Republican party offer an alternative to secular progressivism? The reality is the Conservative Republican Party is not an alternative to liberalism, but a partner, it represents the other face of the same coin.
Read more on http://biblestudyspace.com

Hal Hurst

When you appear on Fox News, you appear to a certain self-selected tribal group which is only looking for affirmation of their world view. Much of the rest of the world has tuned them out as being too tedious to listen to for any length of time. All the same, it’s sad and even tragic that people keep misrepresenting the legacy of Jesus to justify their own biases, even to the point of demonizing all others. We should all take a lesson about this, and try to see some good in every person.

Wolf

I’m very pleased to see people of your ilk speaking out on things like this. A Christian myself, I look at people who want to treat others poorly because they’re gay or a number of other reasons citing Christianity as their cause and shake my head. I fail to see how being gay makes others worse than us. We are all sinners. So have some compassion. Thank you for your comment, Hal.

Lori

Wolf,
Thank you for being a reasonable person in the midst of many name callers. I appreciate you!

Rachael

Hate the sin, LOVE the sinner….

Matthew 7:1-5 1
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

John 8:1-7
Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives.

2And early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down and taught them. 3And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst,4they said unto Him, “Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
5Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned but what sayest thou?”
6This they said testing Him, that they might have cause to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not.7So when they continued asking Him, He lifted Himself up and said unto them, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

T L Stanley

Amen!

Silver

How very nice. Thank you.

pat

Amen.

Kathie

I really hope that all these Christians & Right Wingers start to read the Bible and explain to me how the following passage by Jesus show they can judge someone else when they themselves are not following the teachings in the Bible: For starters-“Love the Lord your God”-“Love your brother as yourself”-Also “If you can not love your brother who you have seen-how can you love God who you have not seen?”

Joe

Kathie,
Would you extend that to pedophiles, for example? Must we love *them*? Actually, the answer is yes, we must….*BUT*….The Catholic Church has the notion we must “Hate the sin, but love the sinner”. Precisely right. We can love Ellen DeGeneres as a fellow child of God…and still hate what she does, as a sin against God. Otherwise, we lose all right to judge *anyone*. What gives us the right to say Hitler was a bad guy…if we may not “judge” him. The usual answer – though the one’s who say it generally don’t realize they’re saying it – is “Oh, but *he* did things that *I* hate! That’s different. It’s OK to judge people whose actions *I* find wrong…or evil…or whatever.”

RoseMary

Thank you, God for good people like those who work for JC Penney. I am sick of people who only have hate in their hearts. The Bible also says we shouldn’t judge others, maybe they forgot that one.
Thanks for the interesting article and Yes, please do come back to the good side. We are an accepting group.

Julie Campbell

Bernard, if you decide to come back to the “dark side”, we will be happy to welcome you back. You have way too much compassion to be associated with the lunatic fringe of the right.

Dragontech64

I find the hypocrisy of “One Million Moms” DEMANDING that JCPenny be neutral in the culture war, BY CHOOSING SIDES against the LGBTQ community. How hateful and despicable this group is!

Elan

Good point! It’s not like I’m boycotting companies for using christian spokes people.

Mark Borok

The Bible does prohibit homosexuality, but only for men. It is very explicit about that. 613 commandments and not one about women not doing it with other women. I wonder how many Christians who claim to have read the Bible actually skipped Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

kerry jacoby

“The Bible does prohibit homosexuality, but only for men.”

No, sorry. You missed the renewal of the sexual conduct prohibitions in the New Testament (no, those sins are not just part of “old” law).

Romans 1:26-27 is about as clear as you can get. Women AND men. Not allowed:

“For this cause [worshipping the creation rather than the Creator], God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”

Just to be sure we are working from a correct set of facts.

ph16

Kerry is right on that one I’m afraid, but I still think whatever your view on homosexuality is doesn’t justify calling on people to be fired and I suspect that if One Million Moms doesn’t want her at JC Penney, they won’t want her to work anywhere else.

Tim Rolfe

In the eighth paragraph, Larry is shown to equate being gay with a whole list of behaviors, not noticing that some of them would probably eliminate the majority of people who aren’t gay.

Note: drinking, not drunkenness. There goes a lot of advertising money. Fornication — isn’t that implied in a LOT of television drama? Not the central theme, but the assumption of what happens when two of the beautiful people are together — and not just off-camera.

kerry jacoby

“In the eighth paragraph, Larry is shown to equate being gay with a whole list of behaviors….”

Not sure I get your point. So a lot of people are going to Hell. Is that a surprise to you? That’s what it means by [Jesus speaking]: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matt 7:13-14, NIV.)

Here’s the list from Revelation, if it helps:

“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars–their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

There is also this from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10:

“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

And then there’s this (1 Corinthians 6:18-20):

“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.”

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (Sorry, health nuts; this is about sex, not food and exercise).

Vicky

I agree with you Bernie. I am a Catholic Conservative and don’t understand the bigotry in the uppity righteous people. God loves all of us and these people are committing a big sin. Keep up the good work.

Jeannette

Bernie: There’s an old saying that there’s no fool like an old fool.

Now there’s a new saying (mine) that there’s no bigot like a self-professed perfect person. That particular brand of bigot is legion. They’re embarrassments to most of the remainder of the human race (American-type). I wish I could apologize to you for them about the abuse heaped upon you.

And I’m not saying I’m better than they are; all I’m saying is that my sight is better.

Michael

Dear Bernie,

Thank you.

I am a gay Christian, and a pastor, and I will tell you that your detractors are ignorantly cherry-picking when it comes to what they believe about God and the bible.

Churches are full of divorced-and-remarried, pork-eating, mixed-fabric-wearing, sideburns-shaving, Saturday-laboring people, including women who dare to wear jewelry. Those devout folk realize none of those prohibitions apply to them, yet they crack their bibles open in a jiffy to “prove” that a beautiful human being like Ellen is somehow wicked.

These fine folk have been brainwashed by a few preachers to think that gay people (like me) have some “agenda” beyond the right to marry someone we love and making dinner this evening.

They also do not realize that Romans 1 was written about idol-worshipers who were engaging in same-sex temple prostitution; nor do they know that 1 Cor. 6:9 was translated by Luther 500 years ago as “child molesters” (not homosexuals); and they don’t grasp that Genesis 19 is about sexual violence and gang rape, not a loving same-sex relationship.

And as Christians, they may not have pondered that in Christ there is no “male and female” (Galatians 3:28, which quotes Genesis 1:27 to overturn it, since we are not under the old order of creation but are a new creation in the Risen One).

Love is love. And Ellen is a fantastic woman. I’m glad JC Penney has her as a spokesperson, and I’m appreciative that you are standing up for them, and for me.

Michael

David

Thank you Michael. I too am a gay Christian and a former Southern Baptist pastor. I happily attend an American Baptist Church in New England which states in our Statement of Beliefs that we affirm people without regard to race, age, sexual orientation, etc. I thank my Creator that we have companies like JCPenney who also affirm people completely and allow employees to bring their whole selves to work. I bet they didn’t hire her because she is gay and I am equally happy they chose not to fire her for her sexual orientation.

Darren MN

If we are only going to hire non-sinners as spokespeople, then we’ll have no spokespeople. Quit choosing one sin to get all upset about.

The million moms are violating a dozen Biblical principles in order to scream about this one, which, as others have posted, is questionably dealt with in the Bible anyway. There is NOTHING in the Bible about lesbians. Nothing. Zero. Because women didn’t matter to the men who wrote the book. They were property to be used as men. What they did that didn’t concern men didn’t matter, so it was ignored.

joe from louisiana

Mr Goldberg,
You have lived long enough to realize there are many mentally ill people that hitch their wagons to all sort of causes. I know not the volume you received but they are obviously confused on the teachings of Jesus. That being said I am uncomfortable with effort to make people accept homosexuality and the radical agenda.

Vin Bickler

Dear Bernie:
“Illegitimi non Carborundum est!” The Latin phrase sums up the way one handles the Nimnons who attacked your sensible, reasonable respect for a wonderful person, and the right of a corporation to hire her to be a spokesperson.
(Just in case your office does not contain a Latin-English translation guide, “Don’t let the Bastards get you down!”)
Respectfullly,
Vin Bickler
Beachwood, NJ

John Daly

Here’s what really bothers me in the whole Christianity/Homosexuality debate…

The Bible teaches Christians that a sin is a sin, with no sin being any worse than another.

So even if you don’t buy the idea that homosexuality is something some people are born with, and you believe it is a choice and a sin, who are we (as sinners ourselves) to stand in judgement of other sinners? The Bible specifically tells us not to judge the sins of others, because we will be judged for our own sins.

Each and every person reading this has broken AT LEAST 3 of the 10 Commandments – guaranteed! WE are all sinners by that standard alone.

Yet, we’re supposed to condemn fellow sinners? Please.

Craig

Thank you John, for that reasoned and rational comment. I just wanted to add to what you said.
First – every single one of these “Christians” who attends Church on Sundays and considers that the Sabbath or Holy Day are breaking one of God’s most fundamental commandments, which is laid out very plainly in a hell of a lot more places in the bible than any reference to homosexuality. Not to mention that most of them give a passing glance to Passover, but make a huge production out of Easter, when God clearly says that Passover is the Holiest Day of the year. Easter (the name is derived from the pagan fertility goddess Astarte) doesn’t even make any sense – unless you assume that millions of Christians are unable to do simple mathematics. If Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, and then rose from the dead on the 3rd day – wouldn’t that make Easter on Monday?
My second point expands upon your comment that all sins are relatively equal. One of the most widely used Biblical references used to promote the anti-gay bigotry comes from Leviticus – and those who quote this tell us this is absolute proof that homosexuality is WRONG! But why is it that they routinely ignore more than 75% of the laws laid out in the same book of Leviticus, and if asked, they mumble something about not being relevant any more.
What I don’t understand is that in all of time I have spent studying the Bible, I have been left with the impression that God doesn’t want us forcing the belief of him or his laws on others – he wants people to come to him and accept him and his laws ON THEIR OWN. Am I insane to think this, or did I miss something crucial?

Wallace Flint

Bernie,
You are entitled to your opinion, but why is it that anyone who doesn’t like gay people are bigots? Is this a new form of “political correctness”? Many people may not agree with you or gay people on this subject. That doesn’t make them bigots. As much as I have always respected your opinions, I just think you are wrong this time. Is that any crime?

In God We Trust!
Wally Flint- Boonville, Ny

John Daly

Wallace, replace the word “gay” with “black” in your first sentence, and you’ll answer your own question.

Debra

You’re missing the point. It doesn’t matter whether the “Moms” or any other group have their prejudices. It doesn’t matter if their prejudices make you see red or not. They are entitled to express their opinions and shop where they will. If they choose to avoid a place because of the way it’s run….they have every right to do so. If they should decide to notify the business, publicly or privately, of their shopping choices…again their decision…and none of our business

Brian

And Bernie has a right to call them out on their bigotry.

Seth

They made it our business when they decided to go public with a campaign based in hatred and bigotry. They could have just simply not shopped there, as is their right, but by making a big show of that hatred they are now subject to public opinion.

David

The gay rights agenda is to Christianity what Hyenas are to Gazelles.

Stonewall was a bar scene about boy prostitutes and those using them. Not some civil rights organization. It is the “genesis” story for LGBT movement of today. Where “turning someone out” means sex acts as activism.

Bernie needs to research the “gay community” in any sizeable city when the sun goes down and see what the homosexual agenda is all about. And it sure isn’t mom, apple pie and little league. It’s about as many sex partners as one can fir in in that evening. AIDS didn’t happen via moderation.

John Daly

Good lord. Is there a blonde-haired person agenda? How about a hairy-back agenda?

The notion that people are part of some organized conspiracy merely because they are attracted to people of the same sex is absurd.

What you’re describing, David, is deviant behavior. It exists in heterosexuality too.

Corey

I can go to any str8 bar or drive down sunset strip and see the same thing of str8 people so please save the hypocrisy for Sunday School.

Gena

Mr. Goldberg, I disagree with you to some degree. A lot of people just are getting tired of homosexuality being crammed down their throats and their children’s throats, as an acceptable alternative life style.
And if you buy that people are “born homosexual,” I just recount to you one instance I’m personally aware of, which had been related to me by my mother. I have a cousin, whom I adore, who is a homosexual. If you ask him, he will tell you he was born that way. He has in fact told my sister that. But my mother lived with him and his mother when he was a toddler toward the end of WWII. She told me that his mother had wanted a little girl, not a little boy, and that she had forced him to wear his hair like Shirley Temple up until he started school. He was also forced to wear dresses instead of boy-type clothes, and whenever he would come in and ask him mother if he could play with any of the other boys in his neighborhood, he was told he could not play with the boys, they were too rough and nasty. He was always only allowed to play with the little girls. He, of course, was young enough that he doesn’t remember much if any of this.
And another factor, in my opinion, which has brought about so much decisions on homosexual behavior has been partly the teaching in the schools that homosexual behavior is fine and an acceptable alternative life style, and, more so, that kids and teens are pretty much taught that if they are not having sex on a regular basis, they are denying their natural sexuality. As a result, many youngsters who are not really ready to try to find heterosexual relationships, which used to start in the teens, and are now pushed in kindergarden, for God’s sake, tend to turn to same sex relationships, and never evolve to seeking heterosexual relationships. A while back my mother and I had a 12 year old boy living next door who told us about what he was being taught in his middle school sex ed classes. He said they were constantly being asked if they had been involved in sexual activity, and that just about everyone would say they had, whether they had or not, so as not to be told they were denying their hormonal necessities. Our schools are pushing kids too quickly into sexual activity. When I was growing up, 100 years or so ago, or so it seems, I remember in junior high school, at the dances, the boys often shyly stayed on the far side of the gym, and girls often either danced with each other or everyone just looked across the room at the members of the other sex. And they were feminine boys and masculine girls, I was one of the latter. But most never considered homosexuality, let alone would consider claiming they had been born homosexual. Many of the feminine boys are now fine fathers or grandfathers, many of the formerly masculine women are now fine mothers and/or grandmothers. Today such kids are almost aimed toward deciding for homosexuality because they are pushed into any type of sexual decisions and activities at way too early an age. Kids just aren’t ready for serious heterosexual relationships when they are now almost forced into relationships.
One last point I would like to make is that most people do not find it OK for heterosexuals to slurp all over each other in public any more than they like homosexuals to slurp all over each other in public. When I was in the Army,during the Vietnam war, there were five of us women sharing a bedroom. One was a lesbian, and none of us gave a hoot, until one night, in the middle of the night, while the other four of us were trying to sleep, we were awakened by her and her lover, making out quite loudly in her bed. Since her lover had a reputation of getting violent we laid there for awhile, all of us apparently afraid to say anything, until I finally sat up and asked what was going on, and then all the others got up also. We told her that if she wanted to make love to her girl friend, that was their business, just don’t do it in our bedroom, while the rest of us were trying to sleep. We pointed out that sex is a private thing, you don’t bring it into a room you share with others, and further pointed out that none of us would even consider bringing a boy friend into the room to make out, and asked her to have the same respect for us.
Unfortunately, things didn’t work out well. The very next day one of the roomies and I were headed to our room together and my roomie went ahead as I stopped at the water fountain to get a drink, so I walked in a few minutes after my roommate, only to find our lesbian roommate’s lover holding the other roommate up to one of the lockers, getting ready to slug her in the face with her fist because she had walked in on them making love in our room again. So, I will admit, I told them they had gone too far, I went down to the orderly room and made a report and I think both were kicked out of the Army. Perhaps I’m just too old, but any sort of sexual behavior, between homosexuals and/or heterosexuals really is a private affair, doesn’t need to be demostrated publically, and heterosexuals don’t need to have homosexuality crammed down our throats constantly. BTW – I don’t advocate Pennys firing the woman because she is gay, if she does her job, sells whatever they want her to sell, that should be the company’s only criteria on whether she keeps her job. And she is only selling clothes or shoes or something like that, Christians, not soliciting sex from children, leave her alone to make her living.

John Daly

Ellen working for JC Pennys is somehow cramming homosexuality down your throat?

And believe me, many homosexuals weren’t dressed as the opposite gender when they were kids.

To me, it’s this simple: If it’s a choice, why would anyone choose a lifestyle that is constantly being ridiculed and discriminated against?

Mind you – I don’t disagree that environment probably plays some factor in determining sexual preference, but I would argue that the inclination is already there and stronger than you may realize.

The false assumption that gay people “choose” to be that way is actually a by-product of the opposite behavior. For many years, gay people CHOSE to go underground, or live “pretend” lives, in order to conform to rigid societal expectations. Now that people are becoming more open and enlightened about diversity in the human race, seeing it as not being something evil or to be feared but as simply natural, homosexuals aren’t forced to make that “choice”.

Seriously – sexual attraction isn’t something that can be chosen. Think about this – would or could you have sex with someone (of either sex) who repulsed you? I’ll bet you wouldn’t or couldn’t. The same applies to everyone else – including gay people.

Gary Roberts

Gena, I wasn’t dressed in girls clothes when I was a kid, I played sports, played with action man, hung round with guys – the ‘normal’ stuff. And now at the age of 31 I still play sports, hang round with straight dudes and drink beer GRRRRR but I just happened to have a boyfriend. And we have a dog, and we go to the movies, and we babysit our friends kids. i have always been gay. Since I can remember. Same goes for all my friends. And lets face it, I probably know more than you.
I know the the 2 experiences you have had with homosexuals (1 – the boy who was dressed as a girl and 2 – the violent lesbian) seem to have made you judge the MILLIONS of other gay people in the same way, but just think about it for a second. I once was sharing a room on a school trip when a boy brought in a girl to have sex with while we were in bed. Does that make ALL straight people like that – no. I got beat up by a straight man when I was 15 – does that make ALL straight men violent – no. when I was 7 years ald (already aware I was gay) a sweet old woman who’s lawn I used to cut told me that all gay people should be lined up against a wall and shot – does that mean all elderly women are bigots – no. 3 things you need to know. 1 – Homosexuality ISNT a choice. 2 – You can’t judge over 10 percent of the population of the world because of just 2 examples you have experienced (if you did, everyone would be terrified of straight people) and 3 – i was 7 years old when a sweet old lady told me i should be murdered. Just think about that. And peace. xxx

Let me begin by saying how much I love J.C. Penney products. I spend a small fortune in the store.

I will continue to shop at Penney’s.

I’m shocked that there are one million mom’s that do not have family or friends that are gay or lesbian. No wonder so many people in the homosexual community stay “in the closet.”

Can you imagine being lesbian or gay and having one of these women as your mom??

Gary Roberts

I know many gay people who’s parents have disowned them. It’s very sad. One friend of mine has to meet with his mum in secret because his dad beat him to a pulp when he found out his son was gay.
Thankyou for your positivity Kathy.

RecknHavic

Id say that the open bigotry from the Left against Christians is much more evident than that from conservatives toward gay people.
Ellen is funny and seems like a decent person. As a Christian I dont hate her and I certainly dont think Im better than her; I know there are actions I take that are wrong too. However, I have as much of a right to state that I believe homosexuality is morally wrong, as a homosexual has a right to be gay.
Id be more inclined to sympathize w/ your anger, Bernie, if you showed the same amount of outrage at bigotry aimed at Christians.

Corey

There isn’t anger towards Christians….the anger is towards people that profess Christianity but don’t treat people as a Christian should. To be Christ like is to be Christian….I don’t remember Christ going through life hating….he taught love, kindness, and yes even acceptance. “He who is without sin cast the first stone” He didn’t say the same sin, he said sin period. So if you have one sin in your life then you have no right to talk about other people’s sin.

RecknHavic

What are you even talking about? Christ spoke more about hell than he talked about love and kindness and..acceptance. His whole ministry was warning people away from sin and to do that he pointed out what constituted sin. To say something is sinful (based on the Bible) isnt judgement.

Seth

Your view is naive at best, and willfully ignorant at worst. The difference between the two is that based on the ACTIONS of (some) hateful Christians their has been a negative REACTION from people who support gay rights, equality, etc… It is in no way analogous to say that Christians should be equally considered as the injured party when their behavior is the genesis of this whole problem. Gay people, and their supporters are simply defending themselves against a non-stop series of attacks on them that is in no way based on merit but entirely based on dogmatic assumption.

RecknHavic

How did I attack Ellen? Maybe when I said, “Ellen is funny and seems like a decent person” or how about, “I dont hate her and I certainly dont think Im better than her”.
You’re the type that would probably argue w/ a wall.

Brian Dell

Bernard is using throwing around the “bigot” label rather too freely for a self-styled conservative. Conservatives understand the value of social norms, and that means designating certain people “deviant.” There are, of course, various degrees of deviancy, with criminal deviancy being the worst. Whether gays are deviant or not really isn’t the point here, the point is that there is a such thing as deviancy and it is not “bigotry” to oppose its mainstreaming.

One can label someone a deviant and not be a bigot, with the difference arising from the fact that a bigot is obstinately devoted to his or prejudices despite the possibility that the target of his bigotry might not have the attributes the bigot thinks he or she has. I’m a bigot if I refuse to associate with a Ukrainians because I think they’re all crooks and I won’t entertain assessing individuals on a case by case basis. The situation with DeGeneres is not equivalent to this. The so-called “bigots” here are not arguing something like DeGeneres is blonde and blondes tend to be gay. They are going right to the point: she’s gay. It’s analogous to objecting to a particular Ukrainian not because he’s Ukrainian but because he’s a crook.

Now of course being a crook and being gay are not the same thing. But that’s another argument. If the people who don’t like DeGeneres here are in the wrong they are in the wrong because they are treating gays as deviants NOT because they are bigots. Bigots are people who won’t be swayed by facts that demonstrate that an individual is not who they assume he or she is. I’m sure the people here opposed to DeGeneres could be swayed if it could be demonstrated to them that she’s not gay.

Seth

Your powers of rationalization and justification are laughably awe inspiring.

Pete

PS – The entire “gay rights” movement seems to have Christianity as their main target despite the fact that the only cultures who wants gays around are cultures with a Christian background…what do you get in return? More and more anti-Christianism from gays and their immense political, financial and media power. Excuse us for fighting a war that we did not started.

What about the “Gayocrats” who have immense political, financial and media power and are trying to shove their sexuality down our throats?

What about the “Gayocrats” that made Dave Chappelle literally run away to Africa because he wasn’t playing along?

What about the “Gayocrats” who run Hollywood and created some kind of “casting couch” system for adults…and children (ask Corey Feldman)?

Our “fear” of gays comes out of nowhere…

James Kitchen

In regards to your column, the hatred in America came from the left. It exists to this day on the left. The right ended slavery, ended Jim Crow and fought the Clan. The right, unlike the left is free from guilt and therefore, can call people acting foolish, a fool. Regardless whether that fool is gay, straight, black, white, or in the media! Don’t conflate a desire for law and order and merit with hate.

The bible was written thousands of years ago by people with a frame of reference that extended to the next village. None of you people get this?

The more you quote it the more stupid you sound. Use it as a guide to live your life. But don’t take it literally b/c it means your IQ is in double digits.

EddieD_Boston

Don’t even know where to begin Bernie. It’s amazing a lot of bible quoters have no idea how stupid they are.
As I posted here b/f, I watched Jesus Camp on A&E, which was a doc about home schooling Christian families who send their kids to a summer “Jesus Camp”. At one point during the program the mother told her kids that Harry Potter was the devil. I almost fell off my couch.
Bernie, they’re more than just bigots. They’re mentally retarded bigots.
Ellen seems very likable. Why would anyone hate her?

Bryan

I can’t believe that I have to be the one to say this. I was raised devout Southern Baptist, but became very alienated from the faith in which I was raised, for the essential element in Bernard’s article: People of “faith” who purport to live their lives by “The Word of God” (a.k.a. the Bible), always seem to treat the Bible like a salad bar…they pick the parts that they like, and just ignore the parts with which they disagree. We’re supposed to live our lives honoring the Ten Commandments and John 3:16, but you’re just supposed to ignore the following from Leviticus 18:22 through 18:

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.,,,,Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you….Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you….For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;…That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you….For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people….Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God.”

Folks, I resigned from the Christian faith because of the fact that the above plainly states that not only should a person following “God’s word” not be a homosexual, they are not allowed to tolerate homosexals among them”. I don’t agree with it, but its “God’s word”…period…if you believe in the Bible. You don’t get to just ignore that part, anymore than you get to ignore “Thou shalt not kill”. Its either ALL the word of God, or else none of it is”. Pure and simple.

Oh, and by the way, can we please lose the term “homophobe” please? I personally don’t care what sort of activity two consenting adults conduct in the privacy of their own lives, but calling anyone who doesn’t agree with homosexuality a “homophobe” is B.S. Most such people do not “fear” homosexuals…they just don’t like them or agree with them.

Geez!

Mike

Interesting that you say bible believers do not get to choose, yet they do so every day. You are not suppose to leave/divorce your wife but christians do and it is tolerated. There are no calls for boycotts on companies who hire divorcees as their spokesperson. Or, for spokespersons who wear clothing of differing material, or, or, or…

Shmooliyet

Charlie hit the nail on the head. I am a hetero conservative, and someone’s sexuality doesn’t bother me (unless they’re waving it in my face): it’s the mean-spirited, judgmental people (on any side) who do. Unfortunately they often seem to have the loudest voices. Thank you, Bernie, for speaking out against some ugly behavior in conservatives, when we’re so accustomed to seeing it in liberals! It would be intellectually lazy -and cowardly- to ignore it.Your column was honest–and that is what is SO lacking in the media, and many other places, these days. (I patiently await your next book…)

Mike

Lets play a game. If you were at the airport waiting to pick up a relative and you saw a man greet an arriving woman with a short kiss on the lips, is that waving their sexuality in your face? Does it ‘bother’ you? What if it were two men with the same quick kiss? Is that waving their sexuality in your face? Would it ‘bother’ you?

Darren MN

Agreed.

Shmooliyet

NO to all four of your questions. I know the difference between acts of affection (between a man/woman, man/man, woman/woman) and what I meant by “waving SEXUALITY in my face”. I don’t think of two people kissing ( short or long) as them waving anything in my face. I do consider kids play-humping to music on the beach during Carnival as offensive, and have never seen two men doing it, not where I vacation ( sorry.) It’s not the preference of the participants, it’s the ACT. Thanks for the game- now climb down off your superiority box, Mike.

TOMMY FREEDOM

WELL, WE ALL FOUND OUT WHO THE CHRISTIAN BIGOT IS THIS WEEK. HE PROBABLY DOESNT BELIEVE IN ANY RELIGION HIMSELF. MAYBE SOON,
HE WILL DECLARE HIS OWN ” DIETY ” LIKE JULIUS
CEASAR. WE NEED ONLY ONE ABORTION, A RETRO-
ABORTION FOR HIM !

Brendan Horn

Bernard,
In general, I agree with you on this issue. I personally wish issues like this would go away because I consider them to be a waste of time. What kind of person actually cares who gets paid to do inane commercials selling products that should be able to sell without celebrity endorsements?
Along these same lines, I sort of wish you would not focus on waste of time issues like this. There are probably quite a few homophobes who are conservatives. At the same time, there are plenty of communists and socialists in the liberal party. There are plenty of racists in both parties. As long as these people do not break laws or rise to power, I am not threatened by them. Which is more dangerous: a communist/socialist leaning president or a group like One Million Moms that almost no one had ever heard of before this column of yours.
Also, I remember a column of yours a few weeks ago where you were concerned that Santorum might institute theocracy in this country. Are you concerned that Obama might do the same as he is now using the words of Jesus to justify his tax policy. Personally, I consider atheists imposing their beliefs on others to be on par with religious people doing the same and actually the atheists are more dangerous in this respect because there is no Constitutional protection like “separation of church and state” to protect people from atheistic or agnostic tyranny.

Mike

This issue is not a ‘waste of time’ for christians in organized religion which always needs a boogie man with which to control their masses. In today’s time, it is homosexuals. Yesterday, it was integration. Before that it was slavery.. you can go on and on.

Phil

Good Christians need to remember that God is the one who does the judging. Leave that up to Him. I don’t profess to understand a complex issue like the origin of homosexuality. I just try to be the best person I can be and give everyone everyone else the space to do the same. I don’t think seeing two gay people is going to turn anyone else gay, so let them live their lives according to their consciences, and let God sort out who’s right and who’s wrong.

Dave

Bernie, you are way off the mark on this one! It’s not about bigotry against homosexuals as individuals, it’s about their BEHAVIOR!! Both the Old Testament and the New Testament are very clear on homosexual behavior. Period. Furthermore, the fact that you would actually attempt to draw an analogy between the racial discrimination blacks faced during the 50’s and so-called discrimination homosexuals face now is completely wrong and absurd! You CANNOT equate someone’s race with someone’s sexual behavior!!! What you just did violates everything Martin Luther King stood for!! You are making an absolute mockery of what blacks in America had to face for hundreds of years!!! One Million Moms has every right to do what they are doing; in the face of this constant barrage of radical left-wing extremist homosexual activism, they are expressing their First Amendment rights, and are standing up for what they feel is right as a matter of conscience, for what is right behavior versus what is immoral behavior! The radical homosexual agenda is everywhere now; look at what just happend in California the other day!! A bunch of radical, vile, left-wing activist judges just went against the will of the people and decided to overturn Prop 8 which defines marriage as between a man and a woman ONLY!! The fact that the people of even liberal California spoke and voted to UPHOLD and PROTECT and DEFEND traditional marriage DIDN’T MATTER to these EVIL, RADICAL, left-wing activist so-called “judges”!! That is FASCIST!! When you take away th outcome of the vote, that is simply FASCIST!! PERIOD!! Thank G-D this will no doubt now go to the Supreme Court which should ultimately overturn what this despicable, vile, evil so-called “court” just did and marriage will once again be RESTORED and DEFINED as between a man and a woman ONLY!!! PERIOD!!! Bernie, all I have to say is that you are WAY OFF on this one!!!!!!

EddieD_Boston

Unless some guy tries to stick his wiggy in your ass why does homosexuality bother you so much? I have some gay friends and they’re very nice people. What they do is their business.

Seriously, get a grip.

And btw, if you take the bible literally you’re as bright as a 3 watt lightbulb.

George

And that did happen to me as well as my brother being molested by a gay man. Being a 17 year old, naive, young man, during the 50s, I had no clue what he was trying to do, since he had spiked my soda. I knew the word queer but that was the limits of my education.
I am really not comfortable being around openly and demonstrably gays. It sickens me. Leaving any and all biblical references out of the discussion, how can there
be any argument that homosexuality is good for the species. Hard to argue that case.

Zoe

George, the species is not at risk from homosexuality. At 7 billion and climbing fast, the planet is in no danger of being deprived of people.

George

Zoe, I am not arguing that the species is in danger. Leaving out the religious argument homosexuality cannot be argued as beneficial to the species. If it is innate, shouldn’t it have disappeared from the gene pool, or at least be on its way out, instead of growing rapidly? Whether it’s innate or not, shouldn’t proponents of Darwinian natural selection (as I am)agree that homosexuality is deviant behavior and should be shunned for the good of our species?

Ragnar

Can anybody actually listen to themselves? The Bible says this or that… Well my opinion is that a book says nothing, but a human will interpret what they want from it. Prove to me that God wrote the Bible or that he pushed the hand that wrote it? Science to prove that Ellen is born gay? Please get a life.
I personally do not approve of the gay lifestyle. I personally do not approve of organized religion, it is the mirror image of evil. But ponder this, do gay people harm each other or you? Do conservative Christians harm each other or you? Do seccular Jews and Orthodox Jews harm each other or you ? When humans start viewing God’s creations as less than what they are they become a ignorant and evil human.

Dr. Rich S. from Jersey.

Bernie, like you, I too was once a Democrat–until I heard then presidential aspirant Ronald Reagan speak at a medical convention. Haven’t voted for a Democrat since. JC Penney made a business decision & as many others have said, if anyone is uncomfortable with Ellen DeGeneres being their spokesperson, just don’t shop there anymore.
Although I’m heterosexual, very conservative & oppose gay marriage, I don’t have a problem with most gays, although, to be honest, I liked it better when they were “in the closet.” We knew what they were doing in there but we just didn’t like to think about it. I just don’t like this “in your face” & “we’re queer & we’re here” attitude.
You may be correct that there’s a “strain of anti-gay bigotry running through conservative America,” the same way that many of us feel that there’s a strain of anti-American, anti-Christian, pro-Muslim, anti-business, anti-rich white guys mentality running through the Obama administration.

Jay Hall

Bernie,

You stated that Ellen Degeneres was born gay. Can you produce the science that proves that? In fact, a researcher by the name of Dean Hamer in the 1990’s came up with a study supposedly proving that gays were born that way. Naturally the “media” put the results on their front pages. The problem was, other scientists tried to repeat and duplicate Hamer’s study. To my knowledge, none of them were able to come up with the same results as Hamer reported. As a result, the study has been largely debunked. You know that if any scientific evidence exists, we would be seeing and hearing about it on the mainstream media. I don’t recall ever seeing much of anything since. Also, why is it that multitudes of homosexuals leave the lifestyle each year via therapy?

The problem is the “plumbing”.It doesn’t fit so to speak. So (to state it from a phsiological position) can you please tell me what is normal or natural about one man inserting his penis into another man’s anus?

It really doesn’t make much sense does it? Also, what about the obvious health issues that are created by virtue of this kind of behavior?

Gay folks are free to do whatever they want; but that doesn’t give them the right to make me pay for their indescressions in terms of public health. Further, it doesn’t give them the right to shove their life style in the faces of all straight people when their behavior is by common sense, detrimental to not only the rest of society, but damaging to themselves both physically and psychologically.

Tolerance which the homosexual folks are so adamant about, works both ways. It is shameful that they can’t abide by the majority vote of the people.

Colleen Haaland

God says love thy neighbor, not judge thy neighbor.

rbblum

But, Bernie, it is an ‘image’ (or brand) thing. No different than if John Wayne were to be a spokespeson for a cause, product or service. And, it is not necessarily anything other than E DeGeneres’ image or brand that does not necessarily appeal to one and all that is generating such a reaction . . . which can be considered to be a natural response to an ad campaign in the free marketplace . . . nothing (necessarily) personal.

xkaren08

Thank you so much for this post and for your words on The Factor. The words that were written to you were ugly but I think that it is important to share them publicly so that people who are indifferent to gay rights issues or think folks are always making ‘much ado about nothing’ see what we are fighting against. There are plenty of Americans who are more Libertarian than anything else but who will never vote Republican as long as the social conservatives have any power.

robin in fl

RE: some of the homophobes ….to steal a line from Shakespeare ,’me thinks thou doth protest too much’ ….

I mean really????does it really matter what celeb is spokesperson for what store or brand?..just don’t shop or buy if your that offended .simple as that.

If Michael vick were selling donuts for 1.00 a dozen for a company I wouldn’t buy them,no matter how bad I wanted the donuts simply because I believe MV is and always will be in my mind the scum of the earth and for obvious reasons I don’t need to get into.It’s not up to me to tell the company not to hire him as spokesperson.

I mean what does it really matter who has sex with who unless it is with a child or an animal ,I really could care less.makes me think that some, that protest so loudly look at gays and all they can think about is gay sex acts..come on…even if they are gay or straight ,most people have a bit more to do in life and in their relationships, then have sex 24/7 and it’s just so creepy thinking that certain people look at people and can only imagine the sex they may or may not be having…brings out the EWWWWW factor in me.

I also wonder if the million moms would have a heart attack if they found out some of the hubbys may have had gay relations at one time or another.? not saying they have,BUT..out of a million,I sure would bet my last dollar that at least a few of them have and just have never told anyone.

as always Bernie ,keep up the good work,I do so enjoy your take on things .

Larry W

Bernie,
I watched your segment on O’Reilly. I thought your statment was bold, but honest. I agree with what you said. However, I must admit that I am put off by anyone openly showing their sexual preference. It just isn’t my business. I do understand, as much as I can, that the fairly recent acceptance of being gay is like when I was a kid and it was the last day of school for summer break – freedom at last!
When businesses advertise, they open themselves up for criticism – and that is fair. You don’t like it, don’t buy from JCP.

Wildwood Curt

By whose authority is homosexuality morally acceptable? Only by legislated human law, but certainly not by the word of God. In Leviticus, chapter 18, He spells out unlawful sexual relations. For 5,000 years Jews and Christians have build the most advanced, freedom-loving society in the history of mankind upon these social restraints. It is only in recent times has society tried to legally depart from them, notably concerning homosexuality. Which other of these moral laws spelled out in the Scriptures are you ready to suspend… and upon whose authority? Is incest, polygamy, and bestiality suddenly acceptable? If new human laws mandate that they are, will you be okay with that new standard? God calls homosexuality detestable and a perversion. Is He guilty of a hate crime? Is He a bigot?

Steve in Texas

Bernie, Just to prove how enlightened I am I’m going to admit that I have gay friends and could care less, the ones I know are descent people. However, as the father of an 8 year old daughter, I do not like the feeling of potentially being manipulated, or worse my daughter being manipulated, by the media for political purposes, and I can’t help the thought that part of the reason for using Ellen Degeneres was to push a political agenda across public airwaves. Was there absolutely no one else available to be JC Penney’s spokesperson?

Bruce A.

Good one Bernie. This should make it really hit the fan.

Joseph Maloney

Businesses can hire anyoue they want, becuse that’s part of free enterprise, and capitalism.
The country is in very real trouble, a soon to be 16.2 trillion dollar deficit; 6 trillion waa added in 3 1/2 years by Congress and President Obama.
As in 2008 we need a “change”. The political parties and the MSM give plenty of coverage to emotional issues like gay marrriage, Obamacare, and the cotinuing lagging economy. People are uptight, and the nedia feeds them plnty of “drama” Remember all the hoopla over the “Budget Crisis” thet led to the August 2011? Well it was all a hoax! The ‘committee of 12′, ‘gang of 6′, and all tthose speeches were lies from everyone of them. Defense got drastic cuts, the 2 month payroll tax extension will be paid for with a fee on mortgage applications. We still haven’t a budget in over 1000 days.
We’ve become accepting and complacent with Washington holding us up! I believe, 2010 wll be repeated in a big way this November 6th. We need to get back to the basics, and that means no to gay marriage, an end to atheists gone wild, and jobs for OWS, if they’ll take them. Obama “free ride” is over! JFK remembered: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for uour country”.

William DeLuca

I am not shopping at JC Penney.

William DeLuca

Bernie I am tired of gays bashing the Catholic Church. I think you forgot that part. I as a Catholic did not like them interfering at a Catholic Mass and throwing the Eucharist on the floor in St Patricks Church

Webmaster

I have no problem with the gay lifestyle. But it has caused me to question its motives after running across the murders of Jesse Dirkhising and Jeffrey Curly, 13-year old Jesse murdered in 1999 and little Jeffrey in 1998.

Through my research in 2000 I began to wonder what was going on.

Jeffrey’s murder became famous when the mother sued NAMBLA in 2000, the ACLU actually coming to NAMBLA’s defense saying that NAMBLA’s Web site, providing information on gays to hook up with young boys, was simply an issue of freedom of speech.

And it wasn’t the murders that got my attention. It was instead GLAAD NEVER distancing its membership from the gays that had murdered these two young boys, almost as if protecting them. That stunned me about GLAAD, as if having no remorse for the murders. I had written at the time that after Jesse was buried, GLAAD then kicked sand in his face again as if he was dirty.

The ONLY story a large northeastern newspaper did on Dirkhising’s murder and torture was a press release by GLAAD, the release calling anyone who questioned the media ignoring the story of Jesse’s murder a Homophobe. This was while the same newspaper did over 40 stories on Matthew Shepard, 33 stories before page 10 along with an editorial asking for a hate crime’s bill and a front page.

About six years later it was reported Matthew had been killed by a friend who went to parties and had been witnessed doing drugs with Shepard. The day Matthew was attacked the friend was on a Meth trip, angry Matthew had no drugs on him. People have told me when someone is off Meth, they can become uncontrollably violent even to friends.

So the way the gays handled the two murders had greatly disturbed me, at the time my not realizing how much the news was being colored by their lifestyles in the newsrooms of major publications. It also caused me to realize this had nothing to do with bigotry as much as it was of protecting an image even when a life had been taken.

The newspaper’s editor had sent me a terse e-mail back in 2000, when I questioned the newspaper not doing a single story on Jesse’s murder, his saying they had. Well as I said, it wasn’t a story at all, simply a press release by GLAAD with Jesse’s name in it, calling people names who had cared about this teenager’s useless murder in Arkansas over sodomy and sex.

FOX news, a new cable provider for me in 1999, had reported that it wasn’t the murder they were concerned about as much as the media refusing to report on it in rank step. I couldn’t believe that. But after paying to go through the archives of the large newspaper, I discovered it was true.

The newspaper also had a liberal-lite editor that wrote stories on NAMBLA. In 2006 I contacted him, wondering if he knew Barbara Curley, the mother of the murdered 10-year old Jeffrey, was having to give up on her fight against NAMBLA providing material off the Web that the police had found at the apartment where the dead boy’s body had been taken.

He wrote back and said that the other editors had given him so much harassment in writing the stories that he finally stopped.

So while I agree with Bernie about the JC Penney story, all is not rainbows.

MitchB

Bernie,

I always like your perspective on O’Reilly’s show even when I disagree. On this subject though it’s like this: I believe all of us are born with certain predispositions toward one form of sin or another. Therefore, we do struggle whether we give into that or not especially Bible believing Christians. Additionally, some are born with a propensity toward all sorts of sinful temptations which can only be rectified through God’s intervention.

I watched the segment with you and O’Reilly the other night as well. I was surprised with the conversation that ensued. Here’s the deal to me: Christians can oppose JC Penney’s decision to hire Ellen and demand her removal based upon their values. I see nothing wrong with it. It almost sounded like you and O’Reilly may have gay people in your family and you felt obligated to defend them.

Regardless, the reason I chose to reply to your article was due to your derogatory comments about those who have a “choice to be gay” way of thinking. Well, they may be misguided in their explanations but are fully within their right to speak out against something to which they disagree. Just as JC Penney has the right to hire anyone they want as their spokesperson. In my mind, fighting against a historically known cultural depravity is certainly noble. This remains true even if those involved in this instance, don’t directly state they oppose Ellen D. because she is gay.

Larry C.

Hello,
Bernie I am not like most people, and I am a person of the CHRISTIAN Faith. You as I know are a man of the Jewish heritage,a nd I do not know from which TRIBE you are a part of, BUT one thing is for sure as a devout–(IF YOU ARE)–Jewish person have something that is written in the TORAH stating—“THE MAN-(OR WOMEN)-WHO HAS LIED WITH ANOTHER MAN-(OR WOMEN)–IS TO BE CUT OFF FROM ALL THE CONGREGATION. I AM SICK, AND FED UP WITH THE PUSH IN THIS NATION TO FEEL THAT IT IS OKAY TO PUSH HOMOSEXUALITY IN OUR FACES BERNIE. YOU ARE A DECENT MAN, AND I SAY THAT WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, BUT AS A CONSERVATIVE I WILL NOT GOT TO J.C. PENNEY FOR ANYTHING NOW. THAT I SEE HER AS THERE SPOKE-PERSON.

Allen J

Bernie, I’m a Conservative who backs you up 100%. I may not agree with gay marriage, Civil unions with full marriage benefits will do as far as I’m concerned. But the hate suggested by a few Conservative bigots just gives the press and the Obama administration ammunition, besides being unacceptable to begin with.
Keep up the wonderful commentary Bernie. There’s a reason why O’Reilly has you on his show. You’re the best when it comes too exposing the crooked media in this country.

Emily Bartsch

People need to chill the f*ck out. Ellen isn’t hurting you; she’s not infusing JC Penney’s clothing with chemicals that will magically destroy your family values or turn your kids gay. The people that gay bash, especially the Christians, need to sit down and take a look at their own life and the ACTUAL beliefs of God. God loves all his children. Jesus dined with sinners. He LOVED them. If these people think they’re living a Christian life, they’re wrong. Jesus would have NEVER done to the homosexual community what these people have done. Dislike the sin, not the sinner. It’s okay if homosexuality isn’t your thing, we get that. It’s not my thing, either. I’m straight, but that doesn’t mean I go around bullying people that don’t think as I do. These people are no better than schoolyard bullies who pick on kids who are different than them. Most of these people are adults, so I will pose this question: If your child was being bullied for something he or she couldn’t help, like being short or having red hair or even Downs Syndrome, would you stand for it? Would you think that it was okay since because they’re different, they must be bad? I know that the Bible says it’s a sin, but times have changed. The Bible also says we should stone adulterers and non-virgins, but do we do that? No, we don’t. How many of you gay-bashers lost your virginity before you were married? Probably a lot of you. Well, sorry, if the gay people are going to Hell, looks like you are, too. So doesn’t it make more sense to simply get along and act like good Christian people?

MitchB

I just felt compelled to reply to your, “I know that the Bible says it’s a sin, but times have changed”. The Bible doesn’t change with the times. It is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus fufilled the law; therefore, the old Levitical laws are obsolete. We now live in an age of grace and forgiveness.

We can all get along and act like good Christian people. However, we are not to call evil good and good evil. Nor are we to passively dismiss immoral behavior in our lives or in circumstances which go against our beliefs. It’s okay to be active in our faith even if it means we’ll lose favor. I really don’t mean to be trivial because I have many failings. Meaning, I am not perfect but I do ask for forgiveness when the situation warrants. Jesus forgives…

ph16

Mitch, I understand your position and agree with you to an extent. My only question to you is should Ellen be fired because of it and not be allowed to work? What I mean is that I suspect that the same people who don’t want her to work for JC Penney don’t want her to work for any other company either and probably would demand her firing no matter who the company was. Maybe they wouldn’t, but that’s certainly the impression I get.

Will Swoboda

Hey Bernie,
I had a cousin who was gay and lived with his partner most of the part of his later life. He was one of the most kindess person I’ve ever known in my life and I’m 62. I’m also a Christian and didn’t agree with his lifestyle. But I think we as Christians are still suppose to love others as best we can. If JC Penny loses enough sales due to Ellen’s endorsement, then she’s gone. Let the public decide.
Doctor James Dobson claimed on one of his radio shows that all human fetisis are conceived as female. He was professor of medicine at the UC, I think it was UC? At any rate, his claim is that if the fetis is to become male, the brain is flooded with testostroson. The ovaries decend as testicles and the left side of the brain is altered. I’m sure things can happen.
As a Christian, I realize I will stand before God by myself. I believe I have my hands full thinking about that. I believe we should just care about people. In both the new and old testaments, God deals with the inside but we have the habit of judging from the outside. Nobody knows what is in the other person’s heart. Everyone has a story.
Thanks, Will

Glen Stambaugh

Well said.

L D

I do not promote hate or ill will toward the homosexual community. Nore would I condone harm to them. But I do not have to associate with them. I am always brought back to Romans chapter 1 verses 18 through 32. it then falls to the individual as to how you relate to this scripture. And God almighty. And that God I believe, is ashamed of the conduct of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KA.
There is a proper conduct of the Christian. It is up to you to know what is proper.
Jesus would not have a personal relationship with a homosexual out side of the homosexual’s salvation from sin.

Jim Austin

Is being anti-gay bigotry?

Until recently, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association, used to list homosexuality as a mental disorder. Now, it doesn’t. Did that change result from scientific discovery resulting from the application of the highest standards of inductive research methods, or was it a craven knuckling under to political correctness?

Ellen DeGeneres isn’t just someone openly parading her gay lifestyle. She is part of an effort to portray homosexuality as a healthy alternative to heterosexuality, as sort of being sexually left handed. This originated in the feminist anti-male agenda where they explicitly discourage women from seeking any relationships with men, where many of their articles mention lesbianism as the preferred alternative, where they strongly infer that the most consistent feminist is the lesbian.

It’s all part of the same agenda, where feminist social workers seek to break up families in their charge by driving out the men, where TV shows promote single parent families, where they seek to devalue marriage per se as anything special by allowing gay marriage.

Charlie

First of all, Bernie did not call Christians OR Conservatives bigots. He called bigots bigots. To quote: “Most Christians, of course, are not as disturbing as these people.”

I know lots of Christians and Conservatives who love Ellen Degeneres and I’m sure Bernie does, too. Just as there are plenty of Christians and Conservatives who understand that sexuality is not a choice for most people (Cynthia Nixon’s recent revelations notwithstanding). Heck, I know Christians who ARE gay. So, if Bernie’s arrow hit the mark on your bigoted ass, don’t try to drag the rest of us down with you.

If one approaches others with compassion and empathy (which I think we can agree the Bible espouses) it becomes easier to live and let live, no matter what differences we observe in others. I always say, if gays’ homosexual urges are as strong as my heterosexual ones, how can I condemn them for acting on them? No amount of exposure to “normalcy” will change their urges, just as no exposure to homosexuality will change mine.

Thank you, Bernie, for representing ALL conservatives so nobly. The vocal minority have given the rest of us a bad name, so that many folks who agree with most of what we stand for feel they can’t trust conservatives with leadership. I’m proud to have a courageous man with a moral compass speaking on my behalf.

Nina

Exactly. Rick Santorum, for example, is a truthful and honorable man with good ideas. But I just could not bring myself to vote for him because I simply can’t vote for a person to be my president who believes so deeply in the notion that some people are more worthy than others simply because of who they were born to be!

http://www.bernardgoldberg.com/ Bernard Goldberg

Charlie

I cannot thank you enough. Your comments mean a lot to me and are GREATLY appreciated.

Bernie

Charlie

It was my honor and pleasure, Bernie! Keep up the great work!

John T

Scientific evidence sounds like more theory than undisputed fact that sexual orientation is a choice or not. Evidence is somewhat compelling, but I am very skeptical.

Drew Page

You hit a nerve among conservatives when you said that there was a strain of anti-gay bigotry running through conservative America. That may be true, but it is also true that there is strain of anti-conservative bigotry running through liberal America, which you didn’t mention. If conservatives disagree with what Obama has or has not done, or say that they can’t stand his policies, they are labeled by liberal America as racists. If conservatives want to reform Social Security to keep it running for future generations, they are carictured by liberals pushing an old lady over a cliff in a wheelchair. If conservatives say we should develop all of America’s energy resources, they are slandered by liberals as wanting to poison the water and the atmosphere. If conservatives don’t want to pay for the maintenance of illegal aliens or for those who abuse the welfare system, they are villified by liberals as heartless and stingy.

That said, I am in agreement with you that people should not be fired from their jobs, or be refused employment just because they are gay and admit it. I believe that domestic partnerships should provide same sex couples the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual married couples. I do not believe however that marriage needs to be redifined to include same sex couples.

Mike W

Hi Bernie – I am a Catholic who agrees with you 100%. Many so called conservative Christians tell me they have nothing against gays as long as they know their place, which is in the “Closet”. How is this any different back in the 60’s when white America could tolerate Black Americans as long as they knew their place – except when Rosa refused to go to the Back of the Bus! I am told that we must protect our family values by descriminating against gays. Well, my son is gay and an important member of my Family whom I Value. I suppose in the conservative Christian perspective, I would display better family values if I disowned my son, due to his human nature – endowed to him by our Creator – of being born Gay. I can’t believe anyone thinks this is a “Choice”. Do people really believe someone chooses to join a social minority where it is acceptable to openly discriminate?

Jay Hall

Mike W,

On what basis do you believe homosexuality is not a choice as you stated? How about coming up with some scientific research to prove your point? Also, why is it that many gays leave the lifestyle through therapy and by their own choice every year?

John T

I agreed with most of what you stated. My problem is with this column. You were insulting to people who believe being gay is a choice. That was extremely condescending of you. Did you choose to be heterosexual? If you had the choice, would you be gay or stay straight? After you insult, please provide some scientific evidence for why people have no choice in sexual orientation. If there is evidence and I find it, I’ll admit I was wrong.

Countryroad2012

I don’t think you are right on this issue. I simply do not think Ellen represents the majority of women in this country. I find that she, like some other gay people, are not content to be accepted as gay but they want to be embraced for being gay. It is in your face gay. I don’t care for it. I do not think that makes me a bigot!

MerchantofVenom

The gay issue aside what truly amazes me is people like Ellen DeGeneres and Sarah Jessica Parker doing cosmetic commercials. Of all the truly beautiful women in the world this is the best they could come up with. Maybe Amanda Lee Rogers aka Portia de Rossi (sounds so Italian don’t you think) ought to sue Cover Girl for alienation of affection.

Eric

Companies chose their spokesmen and the shows they sponsor. If I disagree with a show’s message (Sopranos) I do not watch it; I will not shop at the company/stores/services that sponsor it (Yahoo provides this info). According to what Mr. Goldberg seems to be saying, that makes me a bigot against Italians. Am I now an Anti-Semite since I disagree with Bernie? I do not agree with the lifestyle choice of Ellen DeGeneres and will not shop at JC Penny, it is my choice, and yet I am not homophobic. I disagree with the path of our current President, I am not a racist. I do not agree with abortion, I am not anti-woman. As an American, I can pick and chose the causes I support, the stores I shop at and the spokesmen I like. If One Million Moms chose not to shop at JC Penny due to their spokesman, Miss Ellen, than it is their right. I am surprised that you would associate that Freedom of Choice as a “conservative strain of bigotry”. It seems like freedom of expression is only tolerated when you are in step with liberal circles/choices. As long as we treat each other with respect, we should be able to disagree without the name calling that typically follows.

Fred Pasek

How is it treating Ellen with respect if you refuse to shop at a place she represents?

Eric

Called freedom of choice Fred. I do not have to agree with Miss Ellen, notice I did not refer to her by childish/ignorant name calling in my postings (that is the respect part). I do not have to shop at the stores she is paid to represent, I chose to shop elsewhere. It is my right as a free citizen.

JonMT

Now, I will respond because Eric is right on here. It is my right to decide where to spend my money. I do not see how that makes me a bigot, a racist, or homophobic.
I do not support causes I do not agree with and this is a choice I exercise as a free citizen.
Regardless of misinterpretation of the Bible and what Jesus actually said, the issue here is freedom.

Michael

I’m sorry Eric but you are focusing on the wrong issue. The problem (most) people have is not that the Million Moms are planning on boycotting JC Penney, it’s that they are calling for the company to fire Ellen. This amounts to the company essentially labeling itself as a homophobic organization. It’s no wonder they chose to ignore the Moms’ plea.

People are allowed to make their own decisions on where to shop, just as they are allowed to make their own decisions concerning who to love. What you shouldn’t be allowed to do is threaten an organization with boycott because they don’t take the same hateful, radical stance as you on the acceptance of homosexuality.

And besides, since when do retailers have to feature only people who represent their customers’ demographic in their ads? By that logic, if JC Penny has a female spokesperson then men shouldn’t shop there anymore. This whole thing is just ridiculous.

Eric

Michael, it is their (Moms) right to seek a boycott. It is your right to ignore their attempt. What is so hard for some people to accept opinions that are different from their own without harsh language or name calling? I like how you associate “hateful, radical stance” to those who don’t agree or like Miss Ellen, very incendiary. It seems like most of the people who support/like Miss Ellen are the ones who are intolerant and don’t like it when people don’t “goose step” along with them.

Brian

It’s not. That is a way of justifying your believes and trying to make it sound like you are not prejudice. It never works.

Eric

Brain, I am sorry that you live in a country where you don’t have the freedom to make decisions on how or what you believe. In America we have that freedom. You sound (read) like you have been forced to accept views without a choice. A tolerant person accepts differing points of view even when they do not mirror their own. You should come to America.

Ted

Since your decision to boycott JC Penny is strictly based on the sexuality of the spokes person, a complete non-issue in the ads, which in no way impacts your life, yes, you are a bigot. Being gay is biological, not a “life style choice”. Do you boycott anyone or any place that promotes the eating of shell fish? Or men who marry non virgins and then allow them to live? Do you eat cuts of meat that include the sciatic nerve? All of these are also sins according to Leviticus. If your basis for hating gays is the bible, then you must be against all of these also.

Eric

Ted, I am the bigot? You sir, are intolerant of view points not in line with your own world view. Do you have a Capital One card? I do not any more because I don’t like Alec Baldwin as their spokesman, so I closed my account. So what other name are you going to call me now? I am sorry you have been so suppressed where you now view people with different opinions than your own as the bigots. You too should come to America

David Carls

Hello Bernie. I am a man of 71 years who appreciates your candor and clear thinking. Your words show that you are a good man and fair. To me, even though having grown up in a strict and Bible believing family, I still think for myself. Although some of the “true believers” say that gays are doomed to everlasting perdition, they seem to forget that Jesus loved everyone. It sickens me that people persecute folk that actually have no choice in the matter of being gay. Many people of my generation used to denigrate gays, black, Jews and others. I was fortunate that as a child, my Lutheran and Catholic mentors were above such hatred. Granted, we had a few who did and still do, but I don’t choose to be around them. I am very comfortable with my Jewish friends and my Jewish doctor, my black friends, some who are just like brothers and sisters to me and gays and lesbians I call my friends. I am straight and a Catholic and try to follow my religion without prejudice, bigotry or malice toward anyone. I feel you are the same Bernie and I always enjoy your take on most matters. I feel sorry for those who wrote the hateful replies to you over your J C Penny stand. You can’t fix ignorance.

Mike L.

Bernie – Wake up! On O’Reilly’s show you said there is no “gay agenda”! Have you not seen any movies, or watched any TV for the last 10 years? Gay characters are in our face regularly. Laws pushing gay marriage are all over. Look at Ca. Prop. 8, they called it Prop Hate, the people want traditional marriage, and the judges are pushing for what the gay agenda wants. Smell the coffee yet Bernie? God has nothing to do with this, I am not religious. Ellen can do what she wants, and so can Penneys, but it is all part of the “gay agenda”.

Michael

Yes there is definitely a gay agenda. Some items include fighting for the right to love who we want, finding ways to prevent gay youth from being terrorized in school and abused at home, living our lives free from fear of violence. If you think it is to convert everyone to homosexuality, or have your children indoctrinated in some kind of sinister way, then you are an absolute fool.

Pete

There is a book called “The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party” that clearly shows that there is a gay agenda and that they really want to create a homo-supremacist society just like they did to ancient Greece, Rome and Weimar/Nazi Germany.

The book main sources are homosexual historians and researchers by the way…

Zoe

There is a book. That is the only factual statement you have made on this website. The specific book you are talking about is full of lies and misinformation, and you are apparently gullible enough to believe it, probably because it fits in with your narrow-minded, repellant view of the world. I don’t think I can change your mind about that, but I can at least call you on your BS. The Nazis were neither “pro-gay” nor were they “Socialist.” They were fascist and they were fanatically anti-gay. That is the truth, but you won’t ever be able to accept it, and that’s sadder for you than it is for me.

Pete

Bernard is part of the “Eastern Establishment”. The Gayocrats and the Eastern Establishment are working together. Don’t worry, he knows all about the very real and very nefarious “Gay Agenda”.

Nashville

Bernard really let me down. This is indeed a black mark on the man. Bernard is shooting rounds off inside the tent.

Tsk tsk.

Fred Pasek

This is precisely why I feel I have no party representing me. I understand the people who believe that being gay is a sin, but I’m not a religious man. I like Ellen, I think she’s a nice person, and I even sometimes find her humor amusing. So, being a fiscal conservative, who doesn’t have a problem with gays, who doesn’t have a problem with abortion (as long as I’m not paying for it), etc..I have no party, and therefore feel no compulsion to vote Republican, particulraly when they continue to parade presidential candidates like McCain and Romney up the aisle, and spend like Bush did.

Conservatives have a right to boycott JC Penney over the fact that Ellen is gay, and in return, I have the right not to vote for conservatives because this bigotry bothers me, and the conservatives don’t really seem to be fiscally conservative like they claim to be.

Mark Rhoades

Exactly!

Blakely1

I am a Live & let Live kind of girl. I don’t care if Ellen is a Penney spokesperson. That said, I do not think that you, Bernie have the authority to redefine sin.Many religions consider
homosexuality a sin & you should respect their beliefs. Because they adhere to the laws of their church, they should not be called bigots,
as in fact, they are not.

Chris

Bernie – very simply – there are many people of faith who believe that engaging in sexual relations with someone of the same sex is wrong and sinful. That does not make them bigoted. That word…along with other words used in your column do not give fair hearing to those who are opposing your position. We do not need Ellen to “flaunt” her homosexuality by engaging in sexual relations in “Tmes Square” or “Hollywood and Vine” That diminishes your argument by simply making those who disagree with you appear dumb. Many people disagree on what is right and what is wrong…that doesn’t make either side dumb. People of faith who believe that homosexuality is a sin also believe that doing and advocating sinful things is wrong. These are not perfect people. They are folks who try to live by a certain code…and raise their families the same way. It is terribly difficult to sit at home and smoke cigarettes and have your children come home from school and tell you about second hand smoke armed with pamphlets etc. from the teacher. By the same token, it is extremely difficult to teach your children what you believe are faith-based sexual values when schools and advertising are telling them an entirely different story. Ellen will face her Maker some day…as we all will. It is not a judgement of Ellen…per se…so it is not bigotry. It is a judgement that a company would use as a spokesperson for their products…a woman whose other cause…besides JC Penney…is homosexuality (and she has publicly made it a cause). We are reaching a tipping point when religious values cannot be expressed without “bigotry” coming into the conversation. It’s not a question of whether she was born lesbian. I don’t know the answer to that. That judgement…and her behavior…belong to God. It is the example that a company is giving to families everywhere who are trying to raise decent children. Ellen became who she is partly because of her talent and partly because of her lesbian lifestyle. That was a Hollywood choice. Now we get to see Hollywood’s edginess in our local mall while we shop.

Bob Brown

Bernie, I really enjoy you on The Factor, & your articles. I have no problem with Gay people as long as they do not flaunt it. The example is the Gay Parade in NY City. That is really a disgrace. I think in the military, we should still have no tell. They have always been there to serve & I tip my hat! I do not care for public affection, I think what they are doing is trying to normalize the lifestyle. The avg Gay person is ok, but the radicals make the rest look bad.

Richard

Speaking out in behalf of DeGeneres is one thing, but Goldberg couldn’t leave it at that. He had to launch into a spiel about how racist conservatives are. Don’t think for an instant that the race-card playing liberals won’t use what he said.

ulyssesmsu

What difference does it make what liberals say? No one has any control over that.

Mark Rhoades

Who cares? The country is in the toilet and close to being flushed and we’re wasting time on this non-issue? Live and let live. Focus on important issues instead of this rehashed subject. Don’t worry Christians, it’s not contagious.

Bruce Zwillinger

I’m with you Amanda. This is America. Freedom is not just a word. It is what makes this country great. I am a conservative Republican and believe everyone in this country has a right to live the way they wish. Way too many folks with the idea that it is my way or the highway. We are all Americans and should try to treat EVERYONE with respect.

Darkcloud

I try to love all people. I am a sinner. But, if anyone in this current America doesn’t believe that there is a concerted effort afoot to bring homosexual behavior into our homes as a normal lifestyle then they too are sinners in that they choose to ignore aberrant behavior that is destructive to the strongest form of family life;namely,loving marriage between a mother and father. I resist trying to judge others, and I ask others to resist judging my beliefs. I believe judgement will be meted out to all of us at some point.I will use my money, skill and prayer to attempt to keep the life I believe in as the model for a strong and moral nation. You are welcome to disagree with me, it is your right and duty as an American, but remember that the seed you cultivate today will bring forth a harvest in the future that I hope to witness from the other side of this life.

Kent

Paragraph 10… shouldn’t jew be capitalized as much as Christian? Or are Jews not equal?

ProfChuck

With many truly important issues facing the nation the expenditure of so much energy on Helen DeGeneres is both disappointing and predictable. Pornography, both straight and gay, is a serious problem for society but aside from that sexual identity, whether imposed by nature or by choice, is a very personal matter and should remain as such. I have no interest in Helen’s sexual identity and regard a discussion of it an invasion of her personal privacy. If we would spend as much effort challenging unconstitutional actions by the government as we do prying into the private lives of individuals we would be much better off as a nation.

Bill Coffey Sr.

Bernie is the bigot. Definition of Bigotry ‘stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.’ Since Bernie does not believe in the Bible but believes in a 5 billion year old earth and global warming, he attacks those that have a different opinion. The so called gay community are in process of destroying Christianity and soon will be shutting Churches down because of rejection in their request for that Church to Marry them. Why does Bernie use such hate language when it comes to those who have a different opinion on these above subjects? The answer is ‘Bernie is a bigot.’

David

I was going to say basically the same thing. How is it that Bernie thinks it is terrible if people are disgusted by gays and he thinks many christians hate gays, and he himself hates the so called haters. It does not make sense. Start reading the bible. I guess he would say God hated Lot’s wife because she disobeyed and turned around to look at that horrible city Sodom. Actually he loved her, but she disobeyed anyway. Bernie stop looking at Sodom!

David

By the way, the gays can not destroy christianity. God says the GATES of HELL will not prevail against us.

Michael

If god really wanted people to be free of sins and wicked thoughts, he should have taken more care to invent a different species.

Andy

Bernie:

I agree with your take. I am a Conservative Jew and this is why the majority of Jewish voters can’t bring themselves to vote for a Republican candidate – because they believe Conservatives are bigots. And while I know that the HIGH majority are not, it doesn’t help when the One Million Moms come out with idiocy like this. Don’t let the hate mail get you down – these people are morons.

abby n

Agree with Bernie on this. People like this are the reason people like me feel they have to hide their conservative values. It is embarrassing to be lumped in a group with bigots. I love Ellen,and have never heard her judge anyone. She sets a great example for anyone, gay or straight

Rick Johnson

Here’s the deal, Mr. Goldberg. Too many can’t see past the disgusting behavior of some in the SF gay community with their nude parades, etc. They get out their very broad brush and starting painting. I’ve always liked Ellen DeGeneres; and like you, have never seen any behavior from her that was outside of what I would call acceptable. I’m always confounded by the small percentage who spew their vitriol and hate, all the while waving their bible.

Chris Blankenship

Bernie- I started following you on twitter b/c of your analysis. I am fiscal conservative with more moderate social leanings… Thank you for standing up! The people that believe you belong on the liberal side again, are as far removed from reality as the far left that they dislike.

Nina

Bernie,
You should be immensely proud of yourself! It took a lot of courage to stand up for Ellen and for gay people in general! And what’s more, you stood your ground when Bill tried to say that it was not Ellen’s gayness that the One Million Moms were against but the fact that she “flaunts” her gayness. Please!
I am not a “liberal” nor am I gay but I, like you, am just sick of people who continue to use their bigotry to persecute others. We are not a third-world country that brutalizes people for being born a certain way. We are the United States of America! It’s time we just stop pretending that gayness is a “lifestyle” or a choice. It’s part of what makes a person who they are – just as having a certain skin or eye color is. This becomes obvious if you ask yourself one simple question: given the hatred, bigotry and myriad of other difficulties that gay people experience in our society (often leading to depression and suicide) who in their right mind would actually CHOOSE to be gay?
Gay people are, as you say, simply gay. Period. Their effort to try to stop discrimination is not an effort to promote a gay agenda. It is simply an effort to obtain the same rights that all Americans have.
I have a new respect for you Bernie, not simply because of your courage in finally telling the truth, but for not backing down from your statements (which I thought you might do, given all the backlash). Keep it up and don’t let the yahoos try to dissuade you from your principles. I think your statements will go down in history as a defining moment in FoxNews history – and you will be vindicated as being on the RIGHT side of history!

David

Bernie went too far.

He has joined the historic movement created by Nero and Hadrian.

LGBT’s PROMOTE homosexuality to our children. You NEVER EVER hear from LGBT apologists, that almost no one is “born gay.” So, those funny feelings that a child gets when their sexuality is awakening is FAR MORE than likely NOT gay. Confusion and questioning is NOT a calling to sodomy. So say the FACTS!

But according to LGBT activists, “Try it, you’ll like it.”

Tell that to the suicide victims stacked up FROM the LGBT community.

Bernie is the bigot here.

ph16

Why is he the bigot here? He’s one of not too many who don’t call you a bigot just because you disagree with gay marriage and maybe some other items on the agenda. There is a distinct difference between disagreeing with a lifestyle/views and demanding someone be fired because of those views. And let me ask you this, if One Million Moms doesn’t want Ellen working for JCPenney, do you think they want her working elsewhere? Honestly, the whole thing sounds like a witchhunt to me.

Shirl

I say live and let live but the underlying problem is the liberal (socialists) movement has infiltrated the gay movement with the ulterior motive to get votes for the tainted democratic party. I believe marriage is between one man and one woman but gays (by birth or by choice) should be treated with respect and we all should not fall for the ploy of the left and be pitted against one another.

Richard

I have no more use for Goldberg since he went on O’Reilly and launched into a tirade about how racist conservatives are. Talk about being a useful idiot for the race-baiting left. He can go salute his obama poster.

Glen Stambaugh

If the ladies of this group wish to exclude Ellen from their group or their church because they object to her public lifestyle, they’re within their rights. Singling out an individual for personal attack is mean and wrong by any Christian standard.

John

Unfortunately, the religious right has assumed too much power in the conservative community. While I am a practicing Chrisitian, I have found that there is a strain of intolerance among a few members of my faith that seems to contradict the teachings of Christ.

Corey

Thank you for not being afraid to stand up for the rights of others – it is very easy to send angry emails or write anonymous scathing comments, but it is admirable and courageous to say what you believe on national television, and to defend your stance. I am a gay woman, and it scares me to think that somewhere out there, there are people who would wish me harm just because of that fact. So thank you, thank you, thank you for speaking out.

David

Give it up. You are fighting a losing cause. This will always be a losing cause. God loves them, but will not tolerate “unnatural behavior.” Bernie, plain and simple, you don’t know your bible. When Jesus came to this earth, “Goldbergs” did not see the fulfillment of the book of Isaiah. It was their scripture! They too did not know their bible. I love “Goldbergs” and those who proclaim to be gay. I have to love those I don’t understand. God will deal with them and those who foolishly defend them.

pat neal

alright, I’ll throw my two cents in on this one. first off, i am a conservative nebraska republican. on top of that ia m a born and raised christian. to Mr Goldberg, sadly you are right, it is unfortunate that a fringe minority like this even exists.although i disagree with gay marriage, i admit that i have no right to control my neighbors actions. to the Christians who claim to have received their orders from god, go sit in the corner. is it any wonder why we keep receiving bad press from media dreads us Christians,Hmm??? maybe it’s because people like you guys keep making us look like stupid inbred idiots, like the Westboro Baptist church!!! ever thought of that.

Michael

Very interesting, Bernie, and a very good trick on your part to deflect our attention from the fact that the smooth and overly-polished nominee you told us to accept because, after all, “it’s over,” was beat up in three states by that mean little Italian kid Ricky Santorum last night.

David Goldberg

Right on the mark, Bernie. As a self-professed Barry Goldwater conservative, I agree with everything you said here and on O’Reilly last night. I always find it ironic how bigots are so quick to prove themselves such when challenged.

You do our surname proud.

Carol Pomelear

Bernie, I was really shocked by your comments about Ellen. Drunkenness, swindling, gossip,slander,and homosexuality are some of the BEHAVIORS we are told to remove from our lives. There is absolutely no good, scientifically valid proof that homosexuality is inborn. And even if it is, we as counselors warn children with alcoholism in the family to be careful so their genetics will not lead them down that dangerous path. I treat homosexuals kindly and lovingly, but I don’t want them held up as role models for impressionable people. A spokesperson should be above reproach.

T L Stanley

As a Southern Baptist I’m appalled at Christians that don’t understand the concept of hate the sin but love the sinner. Where did Jesus ever say we were to hate another person?
Besides all Ellen Degeneres has ever done to me is made me laugh.

Veronica

Actually being gay is a choice for some, not all but some. Bernie, have you seen Cynthia Nixon’s recent interview where she says she deliberately chose (and continues to choose) to be gay? Its caused a lot of noise in the lgbt community because it “gives ammunition to the haters” but it is true: for some (not all), it is a choice. Personally, I think Christians tend to turn people off to the faith when they’re so nasty to others. The best example of Christianity we can give is to love our neighbor as ourself and set loving, godly examples.

Stewart

Dear Mr Goldberg,

We are curious about your authority for right and wrong. I.E. How do you determine right and wrong?

Alex

I’ve been a big fan of Bernie Goldberg as I have come to know his views and perspective on The O’Reilly Factor. However, when he falsely labeled right-wing and conservative Americans as bigots for being opposed to the homosexual agenda I felt I had to speak out.

America is largely a Christian and middle of center country founded on Christian principles. One such principle is that we believe that marriage is between a man and a women to recognize the unique responsibility they have in bringing human life into this world. This has been a fundamental building block of civilization over thousands of years.

Many of us disagree with the creeping homosexual agenda that has overtaken the media, entertainment, academia and schools. It is not bigotry to oppose this movement.

Bernie Goldberg painted the majority of Americans who oppose homosexuality and traditional marriage as bigots without any evidence.

If there was so much bigotry against the homosexual population why is that homosexuals earn more income per captia than non-homosexuals?

Bernie claims he is “sick and tired” of the bigotry but provides no evidence other than the JC Penny boycott story. This is what is known as a straw man fallacy. Bernie puffs himself up with self-righteous indignation while castigating the bigotry of Americans.

If anything there are countless stories (such as the Target boycott) of non-homosexuals being the victim of organized attacks from well-funded, powerful, pro-homosexual groups.

In America we have freedom of speech. We have the right to disagree. Telling the majority of Americans who happen to be Christian and conservative that they are “bigots” just because they are exercising their Constitutional rights is shameful. Someone like Bernie Goldberg who has made his living being part of the press should know better.

Jim H

Very well put, Alex.

ph16

“In America we have freedom of speech. We have the right to disagree.”

Yes we do, but do we have the right to blacklist Ellen DeGeneres from working anywhere because we disagree with her lifestyle and/or views? I mean, honestly if One Million Moms doesn’t like her being a spokesman at JCPenney, I don’t think they’ll like her being a spokesman for any other company either?

JonMT

I agree. Well said!

Jim H

If Ellen was born gay like you say, maybe I was born a hateful bigot like you say….

We’ll agree to disagree on this one Mr. G.

Zoe

No, you weren’t born a hateful bigot. You were trained by your parents or chose to be one.

kayakbob

Bernie,

Just keep saying what you think. Please.

(And this comes from a guy that believes a “marriage” is between a man and a woman…one of each to be specific. But in the end, it’s none of my business, or anyone else’s whether a person is gay or not. And as for Ellen Degeneres as a spokesperson? Well, I don’t recall hearing her spew anything other than dry wit.)

Shawn Griffin

Bernie,

If I don’t like the decisions an organization makes I may decide not do business with them – JC Penny’s has every right to decide who their spokesperson(s) will be and Penny’s will live with the consequence of those decisions. – Just as those who decide to display their bigotry will have to live with theirs.

Paul

It’s a good thing Jesus didn’t have the same “holier than thou” attitude that some of these so-called Christians have. I seem to recall Him saying something about those without sin casting the first stone. But hey, that was 2000 years ago; maybe His views have “evolved” since then. It seems to work for the politicians.

Cybergeezer

Mr. Goldberg;
When I was younger, I was able to experience other countries and cultures.
They accepted me, and I accepted them, even though there were many differences in language and customs. There was a mutual respect of our countries and cultures.
BUT; You have witnessed, in your lifetime, the hijacking of every single accommodation legislated by the United States Government by activists that have their own extreme unilateral agenda.
I wish I could still travel the world as I could 50 years ago.
But, today, I would only perform that travel with the knowledge that I could be kidnapped and beheaded at any moment.
And that could happen to me in Texas or Arizona.
The bottom line is; You cannot get out of this life without death or offending someone.
I quit worrying about it long ago, and am quite content with myself.
You, on the other hand, may have to retire or seek a more solitary occupation.

Cybergeezer

That’s how this game is played.
The Liberal/Democrat/Socialist/Communist/Unions do it: So those are the rules of the game.
Heads or tails?

Brian

Ellen is free in this country to do what ever she wants,I just don’t like is shoved down my throat.If you don’t understand that it is not NORMAL to lay with another person of the same-sex you need to sign up for a spot on Newts moon colony.JC Penny,the JC does not stand for Jesus Christ! By the way Bernie I guess you are calling God a bigot,he destroyed an entire city with balls of fire from heaven. He let Lots family out before it happened because they were the only ones according to the bible worthy, but turned his wife to stone because he told them all not to look back as they were leaving the city,but she didn’t listen!!! We don’t need to bash them,but we do need them to go back into their closets….I would also like to see a study done, since we spend millions on really stupid ones,to see if the birth control pills that are nothing more than male hormones have anything to do with a dramatic increase in the gay & lesbian community since their introduction in the late 50s and early 60s. I am sure it is possible for a developing fetus to be reengineered from it just like smoking & crack does.

F. McSimmons

If we lose the culture war we lose the whole war. Dismissing social conservatism as bigotry is a tactic that those on the left favor. It has not been uncommon for “conservatives” to do this as well. Colleges across the country are full of morons proclaiming that they are “socially liberal but economically conservative”. By eschewing traditional morality such “conservatives” can safely rub elbows with the high priests of tolerance. “Sure I want low taxes, but I’m totally cool with moral relativism.”

The fatal flaw in this strategy is that it misses the point completely. Small, limited government will not work without a virtuous people. Without a moral and religious population, the very practice of limited government becomes unfeasible. The tactic of the left for the past century has been to systematically erode religion and virtue and replace it with government supervision. When we concede the culture war we are therefore playing right into their hands. Mainstreaming homosexuality is just another white flag that so called conservatives are willing to wave. You are doing us no favors.

Clarence De Barrows

AMEN & KUDOS to you F. McSimmons! There is much written here in response to Mr. Goldberg’s paean to perversion, but your unemotional, clear, concise, well thought out offering is the one rational evaluation of how our Country is being impacted by the “socially liberal” perspective extant today.

Jordan S.

Thank you for this article, Mr. Goldberg. Your stance is one it should not require courage to speak (or write).

John Daly

I have friends that run the political and religious spectrum, from far-left atheists to far right Christians… and I haven’t heard any of them (even the social conservatives) spew rhetoric like that coming from the One Million Moms in at least a decade.

I HAVE to believe that people who would want someone denied work merely for being gay is part of a fringe viewpoint these days… and a dwindling one at that.

Ellen has been the spokesperson for other companies over the years as well, and I don’t recall anyone getting all that worked up over it.

Such people exist… no doubt about it, as evidenced from your emails, but we’ll always have to live with unsavory types in our society. They’re being marginalized more and more every day.

rabiddogg

I don’t condone bashing anyone for being gay, straight, religious, not religious so long as government is not mandating things one way or the other. JC Penny’s has the right to hire Ellen, who has not done anything illegal, if they want and the million moms group has a right to boycott JC Penny’s if they want for whatever reason.

I will say that although I am not a fan of Ellen’s comedy I find her much more palatable than the other famous lesbian Rosie because Ellen seems more interested in living her life whereas Rosie wants to thrust her life down our throats.

ML

I’m a conservative and I’m with you on this issue Bernie.
Replace Ellen because she has done what? She’s a gay woman. She’s not flaunting it in anyone’s face. She’s living her life as she would were she heterosexual.
The comment above mine used the term “decent people” to describe those who have a problem with Ellen because she’s gay. Sorry but that’s not how I would describe one who goes after a woman simply because she was born gay and yes chooses not to live her life alone simply because she’s attracted to the same sex.

kayakbob

I’m with you on this one ML, and Bernie. I consider myself solidly conservative, and like everyone who has ever been on this earth EXCEPT Jesus, I am a flawed, if not outright “failed”, Christian.

And I ask the same question: What is her crime? She was born gay. So what? I am sorry to break it to [apparently] a lot of other Christians, but homosexuality is biological. Yeah, there are people that “play” at being gay because they think it is a way to get back a their parents. (I have known a few people that have done that). Being truly gay is a product of a specific X & Y chromosome combination at a specific time in the development of the human embryo. That’s it! Get over it.

I am not in favor of re-defining the term “marriage”. But having said that – what is so “wrong” with wanting to be in a lifetime, committed relationship with another person.

George

I agree with you Kayak, ML, and Bernie,,,,,up to a point.
Quoting Bernie;
What Ellen has done to offend these good Christians is a) she was born gay, and b) she reached a point in her life where she refused to hide it any longer.
——
What I have a problem with is that you, Bernie, left out step 3 of the progression. C) and proceeded to shout it and glamourize it to high heaven. Had she just shut up about it I think it would have been more accepted.

O’Reilly and you touched on that a bit but didn’t go far.

Please continue your good work Bernie, you are the best part of O’Reilly

D Carter

Bernie,
Members of Church of ‘Jesus Christ’ of Latter Day Saints aka Mormons are use to the rath of so called Christians who have not read Matthew 7 or Article VI. The LDS Church goal is to be among first responders everywhere in the world where disaster hits and people need help. So who is doing Christ’s work obeying his commandment to help others & not judge?

Mitchell

I want to thank Bernie for his great courage in speaking the truth as he sees it.

We The People

Bernie YOU SIMPLE DON’T GET IT – once again Christians and decent people of faith are bashed because IT SAYS IN THE BIBLE THAT THIS IS ABHORRENT & DEVIANT BEHAVIOR AND IT IS AGAINST GOD’S LAWS – what do you not understand about that. There is no fine line. If you believe in the Bible, then this is against God. Period. People who believe in God will never accept this immoral and indecent lifestyle choice.

Robert Couch

Jesus spent most of his time on earth talking about forgiveness and loving your neighbor. He talked about greed, materialism, self-righteousness and other “sins” of the spirit repeatedly.I’m not aware of Jesus ever directly speaking about same sex relationships.The word homosexual was only first used in the late 19th century. It’s obvious to me Jesus is much more concerned with man’s relationship to God and man than sexual mores. Again, homosexuality is not mentioned in the Gospels.

Jim

You stated, “Again, homosexuality is not mentioned in the Gospels.”

First, man was made in the image of God and God is not homosexual.
Secondly, read about Sodom and Gommorah and the reason it was destroyed
and Thirdly, Jesus does love the sinner, BUT NOT THE SIN.
It is stated plainly in the Bible and agreeing with the scriptures is NOT bigotry as Bernie mistakenly spoke.

Zoe

Uh, God is also not heterosexual. God is not a sexual being. It is tragic how confused many of you so-called “Christians” are.

Amanda Vondras

That is an interesting choice of pseudonym, “We the People”. As an American, you should recognize the fact that freedom of lifestyle, speech and expression extend to all Americans, not just the ones who live their life the same way you do. I am Catholic and I recognize that no one is bashing Christians because they are Christian. Christians are getting bashed because in addition to using their faith to justify hatred of gays, they are failing to recognize the most central dogma of this country which is that neither your government nor your neighbor can infringe on your life or liberty because of your color, gender, or how you live your life. Dude, we “GET” you. YOU wouldn’t live a gay lifestyle because YOU think it’s wrong. So isn’t it great that no one is making you live a gay lifestyle? Live however you wish. The gays are not hurting you. So stop spreading hate. God would want us to treat one other with respect, how we would want to be treated, and to love one another. Sound familiar?

xkaren08

So as a literal believer in the bible you must adhere to all of the other antiquated ideas in Leviticus re. cleanliness, dietary restrictions, etc.?